WINE-DARK SEAS AND TROPIC SKIES 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

AND 

TROPIC SKIES 

REMINISCENCES AND A ROMANCE OF 
THE SOUTH SEAS 



BY 

A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON 



? 



NEW VORK 

JDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1918 



/. 



V.'^"^ 






POINTED IN GEEAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LUlttED 
EDINBURGH 



/ dedicate this book to you, 

To your wild songs and laughter, 
And to the half-remembered light 

Here in my dr earns years after ; 
To you, the men who sailed with me 

Beyond each far sky-line, 
And my dead self— the boy I knew 

In days of auld lang syne. 





CONTENTS 






PAGB 


FOKEWORD . 










11 


Chapter I . 










19 


Chapter II . 










28 


Chapter III 




---^ 






43 


Chapter IV 










50 


Chapter V . 










54 


Chapter VI. 










59 


Chapter VII 










74 


Chapter VIII 










80 


Chapter IX 










83 


Chapter X . 










93 


Chapter XI 










104 


Chapter XII 










112 


Chapter XIII 










128 


Chapter XIV 










138 


Chapter XV 










142 


Chapter XVI 










150 


Chapter XVII 










167 


Chapter XVIII 










179 





CONTENTS 






Chapter XIX 










PAOB 

196 


Chapter XX 










. 201 


Chapter XXI 










. 205 


Chapter XXII 










223 


Chapter XXIII 










246 


Chapter XXIV 










258 


Chapter XXV 










271 


Chapter XXVI 










291 


Epilogue 










299 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



LAGOON SCENE, APIA 
-MOUNTAIN SCENERY, NUKA HIVA 
~l NATIVE TATTOOED WITH ARMORIAL BEARINGS 
X FOREST SCENE, MARQUESAS GROUP . 
'k PINE -APPLE PLANTATION, FIJI 
'BANANA PLANTATION, FIJI . 
^ BY APIA HARBOUR .... 

HALF-CASTE SAMOAN CHIEF . 



Frontispiece 



FACING PAGB 

24 



80 
114 
198 
220 
268 
294 



FOREWORD 

IN this volume of reminiscences and impressions I have 
endeavoured to express some of the elements of 
romance that remain in my memory of wanderings 
in the South Seas. 

My characters are all taken from life, both the settlers and 
the natives. I have striven to give an account of native life, 
modes and codes, and to describe the general characteristics 
of certain island tribes that are now extinct. 

My attempt is not so much the wanderer's usual book with 
its inevitable blemishes, for the reason that it is one volumin- 
ous blemish, but I'm hoping that, after a lapse of years, my 
mind has retained the something that's worth the recording. 
Besides, I've smashed about so much in this grey, swash- 
buckling world of Grand Old Liars, knighted thieves, rogues 
and successful hypocrites, that the background of my life 
in early boyhood seems a dim fairyland, whereover I roamed 
at will from wonder to wonder, laden with the wealth of cheek 
and impudence enormous. Reaping such wonders I fail to 
find in pages of romance experiences that outrival those of 
my boyhood, which leads me to imagine that I can paint 
down, out of the Past, some of the sparkling atmosphere 
that buoyed me up in the wide travels of my youth. 

Wonderful and imsuspected are the unheard harmonies 
that guide the footsteps of romantic vagabonds. They 
know not that deep in the heart of their existence bubble the 
eternal springs of beauty, and, as they tramp on, their foot- 
steps beat to the rhythm of the song they will not hear — 
until they be older ! And stranger still have been my own 
immediate experiences. I once officiated as chief mourner 
at the burial of a romantic old trader who had suddenly died 
through the effects of a great spree ! He had a wooden leg, 
a limb that he had extemporised from good, green wood. 
We stuck that sad heritage (it was all that he could leave us) 

II 



FOREWORD 

over his grave in the forest, ha^Hing made a cross of it. On 
visiting the spot about three months afterwards I observed 
that the old wooden leg had burst into leaf — ^had blossomed 
forth into pretty blue flowers ! Sure am I that neither our 
old dead pal, in his wildest and most romantic moods, nor 
indeed one of us, had dreamed of the hidden potentialities 
of that wooden leg — how one day it would once more come 
to the poor body's assistance, making his very grave in the 
solitude beautiful. 

Well, in a way, I would think that my book is like unto 
that wooden leg ; for, as that artificial member — ^being green 
— did not snap as it helped our stumbling pal along, so has 
the romance in these pages helped me along on my travels, 
buoying me up in my weakest hours. And now I feel that, 
like my old pal's wooden leg, my half-remembered romance, 
reviving, may blossom over the long-buried light of other 
days. 

So, should anyone notice that I sometimes write in a 
reflective strain when describing my experiences and those 
of my characters, it is because it is in that way the past is 
now presented to my mind. All that I wish to attempt is 
to throw my different characters into clear relief, and bring 
to the surface a hint of the undercurrents that moved them 
on their wandering ways. 

Looking back, it seems like some wild dream that I arrived 
in that romantic world of islands when a boy ; that I once 
stood in the presence of tawny, majestic, tattooed potentates 
who loved to hear me play the violin. Yet 'tis true enough. 
I have lingered by the side of dethroned kings and romantic 
queens, taken their hands in fellowship, lending a willing ear 
to their griefs. For I was in at the death of that tottering, 
barbarian dynasty of mythological splendour — the aristo- 
cratic world of force — which has now faded into the historic 
pages of romantic, far-off, forgotten things. 

Not only those chiefs and chiefesses of the forests im- 
pressed my imagination, but also the white men, the settlers 
of those days. They were self-exiled men. Some belonged 
to the lost brigade, drifting to the security of those palmy 
isles. 

12 



FOREWORD 

When I think of that wild crew, their manly ways, keen 
eyes and strong, sunburnt faces, their diversified types, their 
brave, strangely original characters, it almost seems that I 
went away ages ago to another world, where I explored the 
regions of wonderful minds. And now I stare across the 
years into the nebulous memories of far-off, bright constella- 
tions of friendly eyes and hopes. Such hopes ! 

I now recall those rough men revealed to me the best and 
most interesting phases of the human mind roaming the plains 
of life, some staring at the stars with earnest wonder, and 
some searching for the lights of distant grog shanties ! 

Much of my apparently strained philosophical reflections 
may appear like strange digressions and slightly unbalanced 
rhapsodies. My excuse for this is, that I am endowed with 
a strange mixture of misanthropy and misplaced humour. 
Humour is like poetry, it cannot be defined. The himiour 
that I possess is something of an unrecognisable quality, and 
I have often spent sleepless nights laughing convulsively 
over my own Jokes ! Often have I sat in some South Sea 
grog shanty telling my most exquisite joke, only to look up 
to see all the rough men burst into tears ! On one occasion 
I told what I thought to be the most pathetic incident I knew 
— lo ! men smacked me on the back and were seized with 
paroxysms of ecstatic laughter ! 

When I dwelt for a brief period in England I listened to 
many thousands of British jokes, but I cannot recall that I 
laughed more than twice. This fact alone convinces me that 
I am incorrigibly dull and devoid of recognised mirth. So, 
whoever takes up my book with the idea of gathering 
laughter will lay it down disappointed. I feel that it is 
better to make this confession at the outset. 

Well, the men who travelled the South Seas in the days 
when I was a boy will vouch for the truth of what I say 
about the strange characters who lived in those wild parts 
— ^and they were wild in those days. I guarantee that, as 
I proceed with my chapters, my only artificial colouring 
will be introduced to enable me to touch up some of my 
characters so that they may be presented to polite readers 
in polite form. 

13 



FOREWORD 

When I think of those castaways from civiUsed lands, how 
I tramped across vast plains in their company, sat by their 
camp fires far away in the Australian and New Zealand bush, 
I feel that I once met humanity in its most blessed state. 
Often they would sit and sing some old English, Irish or 
Scots song, as the whimpering 'possums leapt across the 
moonlit branches of our roof. Listening to their tales of 
better days, it seemed incredible that there really was a 
civilised world thousands of miles across the seas. The 
memories of the great cities appeared like far-off opSra 
bouffe, where the actors rushed across the phantom limelight 
in some terrified fright from their own dreams. The thought 
of vigilant policemen on London's streets, the cataclysm of 
running wheels, crowds of huddled women and men staring 
in lamp-lit, serrated shop windows, pale-faced street arabs 
shouting " Evening News ! Star and Echo ! " swearing bus- 
men, shrieking engines, trains pulling back to the suburbs 
cargoes of wretched people who thought they were intensely 
happy — seemed something absurd, something that I dreamed 
before my soul fledged its wings and flew away from the 
homestead surrounded by the windy poplar trees — away to 
the steppes of another world. 

Yet — and strange it is — had an English thrush, in some 
mysterious way, commenced to sing somewhere down the 
wide groves of banyans and karri-karri trees, our hearts' 
blood would have pulsed to the soul of England ! 

One may ask, in this sceptical old world, why such fine 
fellows as my old beachcombers and shellbacks turned out 
such apparent rogues. I must say that I, too, have pondered 
on the mystery of it all. The only conclusion that I can arrive 
at is, that they were, very often, men who had been spirited, 
courageous, romantic-minded boys, and so had once aspired 
beyond the beaten track and made a bold plunge into pioneer 
life. 

All men have some besetting sin, ajid it is so easy to slip 
and fall by the wayside, to wrap one's robe of shattered 
dreams about one, and tell the civilised communities to go 
and hang themselves. 

In reference to the half-caste girl and the white girl, 

14 



FOREWORD 

Waylaos and Paulines exist in this grey old world by 
millions, and will do so as long as skies are blue and fields 
are green. Waylao was a half-caste Marquesan girl ; and 
Pauline — well, she was Pauline ! Neither are the leper lovers 
introduced for scenic effects. They, too, were terribly real. 
Their whitened bones still lie clasped together in the island 
cave in the lone Pacific. Terrible as their fate may appear, 
believe me, the terror, the horror of the leper dramas enacted 
on the desolate seas by Hawaii are only faintly touched 
upon in my book. 

Old Matafa and his wife I number amongst my dearest 
Samoan comrades. It was with them that I stayed during 
my last two sojourns in Apia. The grog shanty near Tai-o- 
hae has possibly vanished. Could I be convinced that it still 
stands beneath the plumed palms, with its little door facing 
the moonlit sea, the dead men, out of their graves, roaring 
their rollickling sea chanteys, what should I do ? I would 
long to speed across the seas, to become some swift, silent 
old sea-gull. Yes, to be numbered with the dead so that I 
might rejoin those ghosts and find such good company again. 

As for Abduh Allah, the Malay Indian, I have expressed 
my opinion of that worthy in the book. I have no personal 
grudge against Mohammedanism in the South Seas, any more 
than I have for the Mohammedans and their white converts 
in the Western Seas. The islands — especially Fiji — through 
the immigration of men from the Indian, China, and Malay 
archipelagos are rapidly becoming South Sea India, the 
white man's creed being converted into a kind of pot-pourri 
of Eastern, Southern and Western theology, doing the 
can-can. 

When I, as a lad, arrived at the islands, the Marquesan 
race was fast ebbing to the grave. So my readers may take 
these incidents, of their dances, songs, ideas and laughter, 
as the last record of the Marquesans. 

We are but wandering bundles of dreams ! — Swagmen 
tramping across the drought-stricken track on the great, 
gold rush of this life's Never-Never-Land. 

I recall to mind how I once met a derelict old sundowner. 
I was quite a lad then, tramping alone across the Australian 

15 



FOREWORD 

bush on the borders of Queensland. He hove into sight as 
a real godsend to me, and looked an awe-inspiring being. 
His ancient wardrobe, his enormous bushy grey beard, made 
him appear like a wonderful, emblematical ship's figure- 
head from some wreck on the coast with all the crew lost ; 
an apostolic figurehead, that had in some mysterious way 
become endowed with life and was curiously roaming inland. 
Approaching it with considerable trepidation, I played a 
tender, conciliatory strain on my violin. Having the desired 
effect, we chummed together, and, notwithstanding his 
peculiarities, he became a boon and a blessing to me. His 
enormous grey beard, clotted with spittle and tobacco juice 
of other years, attracted all the irritating bush flies, and 
gyrating bunches of hungry, fierce mosquitoes. And as I 
kept to leeward of him, I travelled on quite untormented by 
the buzz of his mighty beard. Indeed I felt like some Pied 
Piper of Hamelin as I fiddled away by his side, happy as one 
could well be, all the flies dancing, like the singing spheres, 
to the leeward of that beard, as we tramped southward 
bound for Bummer's Creek ! 

I recall that strange old sundowner because I cannot 
help feeling that his old beard, hoarding all the flies, bring- 
ing me intense relief beneath the scorching, tropical suns, 
resembled the vast cities of the world, which are like dirty, 
old, tangled, smelling beards that collect hungry, aspiring 
humanity, whilst the happy, musical vagabond, tramps along 
untormented by flies or men, out in the wide spaces of the 
world, breathing the transcendent beauty of God's blue 
heaven. And now I could half imagine that that old man 
was like unto God Himself as he tramped across the spaces, 
his monstrous beard followed by the singing spheres — the 
fireflies by night — till, with his swag on his back, he dis- 
appears for ever from my sight, passing away into the silence 
of the ragged gum-trees on the sky-line. 

So one may perceive that I have had more advantages than 
most men in this world where men stare fiercely, or kindly, 
at each other as they express their own opinions, and then 
depart ! 

Thus do I — by reviewing the shadowy pageantry of the 

i6 



FOREWORD 

sympathetic period of my career — apologise to myself for 
my book. 

Gone the mediaeval, heroic age of my existence, when 
chivalry's wondrous light glistened in the deep eyes and on 
the tangled, kingly beards of strange, apostolic old men, and 
on the bronzed faces of hairy-chested sailormen. But the 
ineffable, eternal glory of romantic beauty still shines in the 
sad eyes of mysterious, homeless women and girls, men and 
yearning boys, who are, to me, the lost, wandering children 
of some far-off Israel of the great, glorious Bible of Youth 
— the shrivelled, fingered pages of the unforgotten light of 
other days — the light that warms the world. 

A. S.-M. 



17 



I cast my bread on the waters 
In dreams of feverish haste. 
But it came back after many days 
Buttered with phosphorous paste ! 

New Proverb. 



i8 



CHAPTER I 

Impecunious Youth — In Sydney — Once more I go Seaward — 
In Fiji — Lose my Comrade — I arrive oflE Tai-o-hae — The Isles 
of Romance — French Officials and Convicts — I am welcomed 
by a Pretty Chiefess — The Brown Maids' Preference for English 
Sailormen — Nuka Hiva by Night — Ranjo's Grog Shanty — I 
sleep beneath the Palms — My First Meeting with Waylao, the 
Half-caste Girl — The Passing of the Great Mohammed — I feel 
a bit fascinated by the Half-caste Girl — Planting Nuts for a 
Living 

I HAD been travelling a good deal when at length I left 
a ship and was stranded for the fourth time in Sydney. 
In those days the Australian seaboard cities seemed 
to have come into existence by special grace of Providence. 
They were kind harbours where Fate could dump, at leisure, 
impecunious, hopeful youths on the various wharves. Nor 
do I claim to have been the least hopeful of the multitudinous 
youths who in my day arrived fresh and green from other 
lands. 

I do not think I was " on the rocks " for more than three 
weeks before the opportunity presented itself, and once more 
I secured a berth on a schooner that happened to be bound 
for the islands of the South Seas. I recall that I met an old 
pal at this period. We had been several voyages together 
and had shared many exciting adventures, through a deep 
faith in the impossible and absurd. This pal of mine secured 
a job on the same ship. 

I was about sixteen years of age at this time. Crammed 
with the enthusiasm of romantic youth, nothing seemed 
improbable, and all that which was hopelessly absurd to 
the matured mind of man was to me something that glowed 
with inexhaustible possibilities. And all this notwith- 
standing the fact that I had already travelled the Australian 
and New Zealand bush, lived with deported Chinamen in 
'Frisco and exiled wild, white men from civilised cities, 

19 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

besides roughing it before the mast on voyages across the 
world. Also, and not least, I had lived on nuts, green 
bananas, bard tack and the dubious " locusts and wild 
honey " of the wildernesses, and much suspicious-looking 
soup in the cities. 

One fine morning, as sunrise imparadised the clean waters 
of beautiful Sydney harbour, off we went. I was delighted 
to see the steam-tug dragging our schooner from the miser- 
able wharf near Miller's Point. In due course we arrived at 
Fiji, where my comrade and I " jumped the ship," as they 
say in sea parlance. A few days after arriving in Suva my 
pal came to me with melancholy aspect and told me that he 
had fallen in love with a nut-brown lassie. 

I condoled with him and made strenuous efforts to restore 
his mental balance, but to no purpose whatsoever. 

Fiji was a wild enough, God-forsaken, missionary-stricken 
township in those days, and to finish my last hopes my pal, 
on the third day, in a paroxysm of grief, eloped into the 
mountains with a celebrated high chief's faithless partner — 
and I saw him no more. 

A few days after, being quite fed up with Suva, I secured 
a berth on a schooner and again went seaward across the 
Pacific. We called at many wonderful isles, which suddenly 
loomed on the sky-line like enchanted lands of untravelled 
seas. I could devote chapters to the wonders of that voyage, 
the strange peoples I met, people wild and romantic, clad in 
no clothes, beautifully varnished by the tropical sunlight of 
ages. How they laughed and sang their wonderful songs to 
the sailors — songs that seemed to have been composed in 
deep ocean caves and blown into their heathenish brams on 
patches of moonlight. But I digress. The climax arrived 
when we reached Nuka Hiva — ^the shores of the gloriously 
romantic Marquesan Isles. 

Though I was penniless, I felt as happy as a sand-boy when 
at last we dropped anchor in the bay off Tai-o-hae. 

I was entranced as I stood on deck, and with all the 
fevered imagination of boyhood drank in the natural beauties 
of that land-locked bay. The inland mountain slopes, that 
reached their zenith in the peak of Ua Pu, were clad with 

20 



I ENTER THE ENCHANTED LAND 

feathery palms and beautiful pauroas. Peeping beneath the 
shore palms were the birdcage-shaped bamboo homes of the 
native village. It was silent and deserted on that " Pious 
Mom," but its inhabitants would return. For lo ! floundering 
in the ocean waters around the schooner, and clambering 
on the deck, were the handsome, mahogany-hued, scantily 
attired people of that little village. No wonder that I felt 
that I had, at last, arrived at the wonderful isles of dim 
Romance. 

I made no delay in getting ashore. A large silk handker- 
chief contain d my worldly goods, which consisted of a 
violin and bo , two flannel shirts, a small-tooth comb and 
one flask of bug-powder. It was terrifically hot. Leaving 
the curious traders loafing on the beach, I made my way up a 
track that led to the jungle-like scenery that overlooked the 
bay. I longed to be alone. I yearned to think out of ear- 
shot, away from the oaths and grousing of the crew who had 
been informed that the beer in the shore shanty had gone 
quite sour through the hot weather. 

As I went up the track I was enthusiastically welcomed by 
vast crowds of sandflies. How happy I was ! Turning sea- 
ward I saw the unrivalled blaze of the sun's dying splendour 
flood the horizon. 

I vividly recall the beauty of that sunset when, a romantic 
lad, I watched the tremulous stains of the western sea-line. 
Standing beneath the interlacing boughs of scarlet-flowered 
tropical trees, I seemed to be staring down upon some en- 
chanted hamlet of romance that was nestling at the rugged 
feet of the mountains. That hamlet, the small, semi-pagan 
city of old Tai-o-hae, lay silent, like some little sculptured 
city beautifully engraved on a slope that fronted the sea. 
Its one little shore street of wooden houses stood out in 
clear relief in the light of the low sunset. The green jungle 
pauroas and feathery palm groves that sheltered the township 
of tin roofs were unstirred by one breath of wind. Out in 
the bay lay two schooners, their canvas hanging as motion- 
less as though they were painted ships on an oil-painted bay 
of the deepest indigo-blue water. 

But it was no painting, for the group of huddled Chinamen 

21 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

who toiled on the pmeapple plantations by Prison Hill 
moved, and their pigtails tossed, and the grog shanty door 
by the shore-side opened as two traders emerged and spat 
violently seaward. 

Such was the scene that met my eyes as I stood alone by 
that capital of Nuka Hiva. With the approaching coolness 
of night Tai-o-hae awoke from its lethargy, for only the 
Chinese worked in the heat of the tropic day. The French 
officials spent the day in a deep siesta, dreaming of La Belle 
France and sipping absinthe between their yawns. 

Walking down the rugged slopes I met a white settler, who 
dwelt in a neat bungalow near an old mission-room. 

" Where yer hail from, mate ? " said he. 

I told him. 

" Any chance of getting a living if I stick here ? " said I to 
him. 

Hitching his trousers up he regarded me almost fiercely, 
as he scornfully ejaculated : " Why, don't yer know this is 
God's own coimtry ? " 

" Oh yes, I quite forgot," I said, half to myself as I smiled, 
for at every Australian and American port that I had 
entered I had never failed to meet some shore loafer who 
enthusiastically welcomed me to " God's own Country." 

But still, Tai-o-hae certainly looked as though the Hand 
of the Creator had succeeded in making it the most pictur- 
esque and romantic-looking isle that one could well wish to 
come across. 

For a time I wandered about like an inquisitive schoolboy. 
I went up to Prison Hill and watched some native convicts 
sweep the roads. A gendarme kindly pointed out Queen 
Vaekehu's palace. He enlightened me as to Vaekehu's past. 
I had already heard of that queen's barbarian fame as a 
multitudinous lover and cannibal. 

" Is she a cannibal now ? " said I, as I stared beneath the 
palms and spied the old queen and her obsequious retinue of 
dusky chiefs on the verandah of her wooden palace. She 
had been a kind of Helen of Troy in the pre-Christian times 
of Tai-o-hae. 

"Ah, no, monsieur, she is not zee cannibal now." So 

22 



VIVE LA ANGLEESE ! 

saying, the gendarme, as he smiled and shrugged his shoulders, 
banged a native convict over the head with his bamboo 
truncheon by way of harmless digression. At this moment 
several natives, handsome youths and Marquesan maids, 
went laughing by. As they passed me they called out, 
*'Aloah, monsieur!" One pretty chief ess, who had a 
figure like a goddess, arrayed in hibiscus blossoms and 
weaved grass, threw me a fciss. 

" I'm going to stop on this isle," murmured I to myself as 
I walked on. The shadows fell over the mountain range and 
hid the pinnacles of Ua Pu. I was still tramping inland, 
once more alone. The scene, as night fell, changed to one of 
magical beauty. Such a change ! I heard the wild shouts of 
laughter, and the musical cries of approval, as the sailors and 
native girls met and whirled under the palms by the shanties. 
Those maids seemed to prefer English sailors. I recall 
that I often heard the Frenchmen say : " Ze Englese sailors 
are ze very deevils when they are tousand of miles from 
Londres," 

Often when the French officials were sipping their light 
wines and absinthe and gave out their toast : " Vive la 
France," those sinful maids would gaze into the English 
sailors' eyes and murmur (out of earshot): "Vive la 
Angleese ! " 

The missionaries had a great deal of trouble to keep them 
away from those old sea salts, and the French authorities passed 
all sorts of peculiar Acts to keep them in order. It was a 
sight worth seeing when a missionary suddenly appeared on 
the scene where they all danced with the white men : off 
they bolted into the forest like frightened rabbits ! I 
suppose the missionaries had gone over to Hatiheu that 
night, for as I passed the shanty the laughter and wild song 
was in full swing. 

The deserted schooners lay out in the bay, not a soul 
aboard. I saw a canoe shoot across the still waters, paddled 
by frizzly-headed savages. The darkened lagoons, fringed 
by feathery palms, mangroves and guavas, loomed into view 
for miles along the shore, looking like a natural stockade that 
protected the approaches to fairyland. 

23 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Even when the moon hung out in the vault of heaven, the 
weird beauty of that island scene was not dispelled ; for, 
like miniature starry constellations, swarms of fireflies danced 
and twinkled in the spaces for miles along the lagoons of the 
wooded coast. 

I observed this from my bedroom, which, that night, was 
beneath a palm-tree by the shore. I awoke late, consider- 
ably refreshed and happy. As I looked about me, I saw 
several beachcombers still sleeping by me. They were 
genuine beachcombers, and only left their resting-places 
when the schooners arrived. These schooners brought in the 
generous sailormen, who lavishly spent their wages in the 
grog shanty, which was the economic centre of Tai-o-hae, 
for, believe me, beachcomberism in full swing — cadging 
drinks in exchange for fearsome tales, punctuated by mighty 
oaths — was the staple product and commercial stock 
exchange of that semi-heathen land. 

Though I had travelled through Samoa, Fiji, Solomon 
Isles, Tahiti, New Caledonia, also through the wilds of savage 
London town, I waxed enthusiastic over the wild life and 
primeval beauty of these scenes and wondrous folk. Tour- 
ing inland, alone with my violin, I entered little villages that 
were tiny pagan cities of the forest. The inhabitants, a fine 
race of handsome, semi-savage people, lived in primitive 
splendour, nursing their old traditions and secretly practising 
heathen rites that were supposed to be extinct. Nature's 
mysterious grace had given them a palatial home of natural 
warmth, beauty and plenty. Fertile hills, mountain slopes 
giving forth abundance of glorious fruits to the gaze of the 
kind sun, surrounded me. By the hut towns mighty shelter- 
ing trees, bending their gnarled, sympathetic arms, threw 
tawny bunches of coco-nuts and delicious foods into the 
hands of her wild children. Beneath the forest floor for ever 
toiled that patient eremite, Dame Nature, pushing up 
through the mossy earth the clothes that so well suited her 
children's modest requirements : bright bows, green-fringed 
kerchiefs, weaved loin-cloths, stiff grass-threads for sewing 
fibrous materials into cheap scented suits, also debonair 
hats for their fierce heads ! I liked those fierce heads. I 

24 



THE MAID OF ROMANCE 

found them crammed with kindness. They applauded my 
violin solos, and brought me sweet foods when I slept beneath 
the trees, untroubled by man ! Yet how wealthy was I, lying 
beneath the coco-palms, counting my wealth in the number- 
less stars of strange constellations till I fell asleep. It was 
whilst I was hard up, sleeping beneath the friendly trees, that 
I first came across a native woman, Madame Lydia. She 
spied me from her bungalow window hole, as, lying on my 
cheap mossy sheet, I counted the clouds that crawled like 
monstrous spiders across my vast, blue ceiling. 

" Aloah, monsieur," she said, as she poked her sun-varnished 
physiognomy through the bamboos and handed me a panni- 
kin of hot tea. I accepted the gift with alacrity and thanks, 
and I unconsciously ingratiated myself into her good graces. 

She turned out to be the kind old wife of B , an English 

sailor and trader. She was a full-blooded Marquesan, 
decidedly handsome, notwithstanding the expressive 
wrinkles mapped on her face. I discovered that she dwelt 
in a small bungalow that stood in a most picturesque spot 
on the slopes that fronted the sea. I was soon quite chummy 
with this native woman, told her who I was, and finally dis- 
covered that she was the mother of the beautiful half-caste 
girl, Waylao, whom I had met the day before on the beach. 
So much for old Lydia. But as my reminiscences will deal 
at times with the daughter, I will introduce her. 

She was an attractive girl, about sixteen years of age. 
When I first saw her standing on the slopes she decidedly 
enhanced the scenery of Tai-o-hae, and that's saying some- 
thing for the beauty of Waylao. 

As I vividly recall her, Tai-o-hae, its romantic scenery, its 
background of pinnacled mountains and dim blue ocean 
horizons once more surround me. Waylao stands on the 
ferny slopes by the pomegranates and flamboyant trees. 
She has not yet perceived me. I hold my breath as I catch 
sight of her and stare with all the ardour of sanguine youth. 
The softest, warm sea wind creeps through the giant bread- 
fruits ; her loose tappa robe stirs, lifted by the winds, and 
twines about the perfect limbs of the girl's delicate figure. 
Standing there, with hand held archwise at her brow, her 

25 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

massive, bronzed hair uplifting to the breeze as she stares 
seaward, I half fancy that the dusky heroine of a romantic 
South Sea novel has suddenly stepped from the pages of my 
book and stands before me, smiling in the materialised beauty 
of reality. 

" Aloah, monsieur ! " — it is a salutation in French official 
fashion. Her speech rings in my ears like music. She 
seems even more beautiful than she appeared yesterday when 
listening to my violin solo in the grog shanty by the beach. 

By degrees reality returns. It's no dream at all. I'm an 
ordinary mortal, who was bitten ferociously last night by 
Marquesan fleas and who only possesses one English shilling 
and ten centimes in cash. 

Though poor in worldly goods, I'm rich with transcendent 
cheek, gallantry and the enormous deception of youth. I 
take a mighty interest in all that interests the girl. I pluck a 
flower from the bush beside us. She smiles deliciously when 
I, recalling my old aunt's advice to be polite to ladies, have 
bowed and fastened the flower in a fold of the diaphanous 
robe that modestly covers her maiden bosom. As we walk 
up the slope I feel that I am the old confidential friend of the 
family ; in ten minutes I learn the last five years of her 
history. I know that her mother, old Lydia, kicks up a 
shindy if she's out too late at night. I know that Benbow 
(as I will call him), her father, gets awfully drunk when home 
from sea. I know that, notwithstanding her rough surround- 
ings, she is innocent as a child ; I know she loves her pet 
canary. I envy that canary as she babbles on, and I catch 
glances from her fine lustrous eyes, dark with a blue depth 
in the pupils, a depth that sparkles at times as though a far- 
off star shines in their heavens. 

In a few moments we part. I hear a musical ripple of 
laughter as she disappears in the mission-room where resides 

Pere de , the old priest, who has known and educated 

Waylao since she toddled. 

The next adventure that I can recall is that I was com- 
pelled to accept a rotten job on a plantation. It somewhat 
grieves me to confess that such humble employments came 
to me through the curse of being cashless. I sweated in fine 

26 



HONEST TOIL 

style whilst planting nuts. I also pulled taro, broke copra 
with a native axe, cleared scrub, and did other odious things 
that did not chime in with the elements of romance. 

Soon afterwards I threw the job up in disgust and eventu- 
ally found it more congenial to consort with the derelicts 
who frequented the grog shanty hard by. 

About those men and their ways I will attempt to dis- 
course in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER II 

Men who shaved their Beards oif — Grog Shanty Sympathy — ^The 
Dead who returned on the Tide — Indian -Hke Men from the 
Malay Archipelago — The Little Carpet Bag and its Hidden 
Potentialities — True Belief — Idol Worship in Secret — ^My 
Incorrigible Reverence for a Heathen Idol — The Old Clothes 
of Kindness from the Hands of Civilisation, and their Hidden 
Potentialities — The Devil tempts Eve in the New Garden of 
Eden, with a Leg Bangle ! — ^Waylao returns Home late — Her 
Mother's Wrath — Benbow's Cottage — I conjure up a Picture 
of what must have been when Waylao fell in the Arms of 
Mohammed — The Cockney's Disgust — Wh6re did You get that 
■A t — A Bankrupt Poet — Helen of Troy — Odysseus 

IN that grog shanty congregated the derelicts from the 
civilised cities of the world, for the Marquesan Group 
was the special province of those men who fomid it 
extremely convenient to change their names and shave their 
chins. 

Some would come hurrying up the shore, stagger into the 
grog shanty, swallow a few drinks and once more pass away 
to sea, like ships in the night. 

Some were fugitives from justice, escaped from lie Nouve, 
the convict settlement of New Caledonia. They came in 
like waifs on the tide ; some on rafts and some disguised 
as passengers on the schooners that traded from isle to 
isle. 

It was an open secret amongst the scanty white population 
who these hurried men really were. 

The well-seasoned shellback would gaze critically at the 
gaunt, haggard stranger who had arrived on the last schooner 
and say quietly : 

" Waal, stranger, where yer bound for ? " 

Then he would immediately stand the new-comer a drink, 
and give a significant smile that expressed brotherhood, and 
seemed to say : 

" I know the kind ye are, but never you mind that ; we 

28 



SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 

don't go back on a cove when he's down — no, not in these 
parts." 

I was deeply interested in these derelicts of the world. 
Some were devil-may-care fellows, caring not a tinker's cuss 
how the wind blew, so low had they sunk in the social scale 
of human affairs. 

Others had haggard faces that expressed something of 
bygone refinement, and hunted-looking eyes, telling of a 
mind distraught with fears — and sometimes, who knows, an 
intense longing for the homeland. Those rough men, many 
quite youthful,would often disappear as mysteriously as they 
appeared, probably stowed away on the outbound friendly 
schooners, never to be heard of again — but stay, I forget — 
sometimes they came back — with the tide, as a derelict 
corpse washed up on the shores of one of the numerous 
Pacific Isles. I often saw those retummg visitors, stricken 
dead men — and women too ! I've folded the hands together, 
looked on the dead face and wondered if I dreamed it all — so 
sacred-looking, so ineffably sad were the faces. Alas ! it was 
no dream. Often a brief note was found on the body, a last 
request for the one whom he thought might still retain a 
tender thought for his memory in the world that he had left 
for ever. These notes would sometimes awaken sentimental 
discussion in the grog shanties, bring a Bret Harte atmos- 
phere and a whiff of pathos into the bar. At times the 
rough listeners received a bit of a shock when the biggest 
scoundrel of the group ceased his volley of oaths, and with 
emotion said something that revealed a long unsuspected 
organ — a heart, after all, pulsed in his sinful anatomy ! 

These travellers were not the only suspicious arrivals who 
sought the seclusion of the isles without letters of introduction. 
There also arrived, about that period, several stealthy-footed 
followers of Mohammed, a kind of mongrel, half-caste Chinese- 
Indian, hailing mostly from the Malay archipelagos. I 
think they had been expelled from Fiji for indulging in 
licentious orgies with natives. It was hard to tell their 
origin. The traders called them " B Kanakas." 

Some wore turbans and looked genuine specimens of the 
man tribe ; but not one of them was as innocent, as artless- 

29 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

looking, as the little tapestry-carpet bag that he carried. 
This little bag was generally full of feminine linen and 
delicate Oriental silks, modest-looking merchandise that 
was their stock-in-trade, which they hawked for a living. 
A few worked on the copra, sugar or pineapple plantations. 
Their chief ambition seemed to be to try to get native 
converts to their creed and their moral codes. 

A silk Oriental handkerchief, or a pair of bright yellow 
stockings, made the eyes of the native girls positively shine 
with avarice — and true belief ! 

Those swarthy men blessed Mohammed and had fine old 
times. 

I would not wish to infer that Mohammedans are worse 
than others who are successful in their ambitions. But I 
would emphatically assert that the emigrant portion of 
Malay-Indians of that day were a decidedly scummy lot. 
Briefly speaking, they made converts of many of the native 
women, reconverting them from Christianity to the bosom 
of Islam — and their own. 

I recall that I had been in Tai-o-hae about two weeks 
when I heard that a native festival was in progress. My 
curiosity was at once aroused. I had read in South Sea 
reminiscent, missionary volimies about Marquesan native 
dances, but still I was eager to see the real thing in its natural 
element. Though I had secured a berth on a schooner that 
was going to Papeete, I was not over -anxious to sail. I had 
been to Papeete before, and knew well enough that I was as 
likely to be stranded there as at Nuka Hiva, so I let the job 
go. Indeed as that very schooner went seaward I stood in 
the forest thrilled with delight, as fierce, stalwart savage 
men and women danced aroimd a monstrous wooden idol. 
The missionaries had long since issued an edict that no idols 
were to be worshipped. The penalty for so doing was the 
calaboose (jail), or a fine that would plunge the culprit into 
life-long debt. It follows, naturally enough, that idols were 
worshipped in secret. Consequently, that secret pagan 
festival I witnessed was attended by all the adventurous 
half-caste girls and youths, and made the more fascinating 
from its being strictly forbidden. I must admit that the 

30 



WOODEN TONGUE AND WISE HEAD 

scene I witnessed was a jovial contrast to the dull routine 
of Christianised native life, and I count myself as the holiest 
culprit at the festival in question. 

I had seen idols in the British Museum, London, also in 
Fiji, one or two in Samoa, and rotting in the mountains of 
Solomon Isles, but the one that I saw that day in Tai-o-hae 
was exceptionally interesting. I was fascinated by its 
emblematical expression of material might. As the forest 
children crept from their citadel huts just by and knelt in 
its presence, I too felt a strange reverence for it ! It looked 
an awesome yet harmless thing to worship. Its big, bulged, 
glass eyes, staring eternally through the forest tree trunks, gave 
out no gleam of light to those leafy glooms ; its big wooden 
ears, stretched out, ever-listening, were deaf to all human 
appeals as the forest children wailed to its wooden anatomy. 

Though it is now many years since I stood before that 
thing, I still recall the glassy stare of wonder, the grin of the 
wide, carven lips, the one huge red, curved tooth. It may 
have been but a wayward boy's imagination, but that idol 
seemed to express to my soul the great, indefinable some- 
thing representing the Vast Unknown ! I also felt the 
awful reverence that was so deep within the dreams of those 
barbarian children — dreams far more intense than the 
religious fervour of the cultured minds of the civilised world. 

I know that I'm incorrigible. I know that my confession 
will strike horror into the hearts of white people — ^but I 
cannot help it — I still retain a deep, reverent affection for 
that heathen idol ! To me it still possesses manifold virtues. 
The golden silence of its physiognomy, its awe-inspiring 
grin — as if fully appreciating the fantastic movements of 
those semi-nude high chiefs dancing in wild whirls with 
pretty maids round its monstrous feet — filled me with strange 
reverence. I could not deplore the fact that its wooden, 
hollow throat whispered no rebuke against the irreligious 
levity that I beheld. And the whole time barbarian drums 
crashed fortissimo, whilst heathen maids chanted. No 
solemn denunciation came from its lips to thwart human 
happiness. It seemed to say, with the great voice of silence : 
" O children of the forest, drink kava, dance and be merry, 

31 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

for to-morrow you die ! " The furrowed frown of its carven 
brow seemed to wail : " Look ye upon me, here am I stuck 
up like an emblem of un joyous death that is devoid of evil 
motives, secret human passions and ribald song. I say, 
can I help this cruel dilemma ? O children, what else can 
I do but grin in perpetual silence — till my lips, as yours, 
in ripeness of time fall to dust? Who am I? Why this 
monstrous infinity cast about me, I, who yearn to lift these 
wooden feet and fly from the worship of mankind — or dance 
with ye all ! " 

So seemed to speak the idol in the forest by Tai-o-hae as 
I watched. That old idol even grew moss on its gigantic 
cranium, as though it would mock hairless old age and the 
unfruitful passing of man ! 

It was an unforgettable sight. As the festival progressed 
the prima donna became more excited. She was a maid of 
perfect beauty, possessing musical accomplishments ; nor 
were her high kicks to be outrivalled the world over. This 
particular prima donna would have achieved a vast fortune 
in the western cities, I'm sure. Her rhythmic virtuosity 
was marvellous ! The terrific encores of the tattooed chiefs 
became deafening as she sang and danced. She seemed to 
support her frame in space on nothing but the balancing, 
rapid movement of her limbs. Suddenly she jumped from 
the heathen pae pae (stage), lay sideways up in the ether 
and moved her limbs as though she were performing mighty 
cadenzas on vast strings of some invisible violin^ — with 
her toes. 

It seemed the time of my life as I watched, and the white 
settlers and beachcombers cheered and cheered each wondrous 
performance. As the shadows of night fell over the forest 
height, the natives came in from the plantations to join the 
festival. It was a weird sight to see them running along 
the forest tracks that had been made by soft-footed savages 
for ages. As they reached that opera bouffe, each one 
rapidly cast off their European clothes with relief. Nor was 
this act of theirs to be wondered at, for those old clothes 
were supplied to them from the morgues of the South Seas 
and the far-off civilised cities, and usually swarmed with 

32 



A HEATHEN'S DREAM 

vermin and germs of latent disease that had managed to 
kill the late occupants. It is no exaggeration to say that 
the native cemeteries were crammed with victims who had 
been doubly unfortunate — those who had embraced the 
white man's clothes as well as his creed. 

As they leapt bodily out of those semi-shrouds, old coats 
and pants, they attired themselves in the cool, attractive 
suits that hung from the boughs of the forest. Dusky girls 
hastily attired themselves in sea-shells and strings of twisted 
leaves and tropical flowers. Then they embraced the im- 
passioned youths, who blushed in green-fringed high collars 
that decorated their forest pyjamas, pyjamas noted for 
their cheap material and scanty width — but were of wide 
modesty. 

While this was proceeding old chiefs joyously thumped 
mighty drums as they stood on the back level of the ancient 
pae pae. The contagion of the glorious pandemonium 
spread. One by one old tattooed women remembered their 
happy heathen past, discarded the morgue chemise and 
plunged into the melee. During the excitement about a 
dozen dark ghosts who appeared to be clad in bath towels 
came on the scene ; it was a crew of Indians. Standing 
there beneath the giant bread-fruits, they looked like majestic 
statues of the old Pharaohs that had somehow been dumped 
into that forest. As they approached the huts that sur- 
rounded the festival spaces, the pretty heathen girls rushed 
forth from the doors, for lo ! the stealthy mongrel Indians 
opened their little carpet bags. One old Indian looked 
like some swarthy Pied Piper of Hamelin as the children 
followed, clamouring after him and his little bag. It seemed 
almost magical, that sudden change from sombre colours 
of green and gold as the native girls purchased those Oriental 
decorations. Blue sashes, crimson and saffron striped stock- 
ings, all the colours of the rainbow were suddenly to be 
seen fluttering to the scented breezes of the forest as the 
maids clutched their purchases. Flocking beneath the 
banyan-trees, they squatted and started to swiftly attire 
themselves in those gaudy, tinselled silks. It looked like 
some scene from an Arabian Night fairy-tale as the shadows 

c 35 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

fell and moonlight pierced the forest depth. Away flitted 
Marvaloa with her big blue silken sash flying behind her— 
her only robe of simple attire. She was held by the im- 
passioned arms of some dusky Lothario who had never 
dreamed that he would live to see that exquisite hour, as 
the sash flapped and the bright crimson stockings tossed 
toward the forest height. 

My attention was diverted from the pretty fairy toatisis i 
by the appearance of a Malay Indian. He bowed to Waylao 
with Islamic politeness. Waylao was alone ; old Lydia, her 
mother, had departed homeward — probably had a headache 
and wanted some ' ' unsweetened. ' ' I had previously observed 
Waylao's interest in one named Abduh Allah, but took little 
notice. I had been speaking to her and had flattered myself 
on gaining her attention, when that Indian settler obtruded 
with his presence. Waylao took a deep, awestruck breath 
as he bowed majestically to her. I can well imagine the 
girl's thoughts, for I too have known those deep breaths. 
I dare say the Indian seemed some splendid hero of Eastern 
romance to the girl's eyes as he stood there crowned with 
his turban. 

" Gorblimy ducks ! " murmured my new chum, an im- 
pecunious Cockney, as he turned from the forest opera-box 
to light his short clay pipe. 

"Who's he? " said I to the handsome Marquesan chief 
who squatted beside me. 

He responded in this wise : " He great Indian mans, 
teach us kanakas all bout big god Mohamma ; sella jewels, 
nicer tappa cloth, mats, stocking to womans from wonderful 
little tarpet bag O ! " 

At this my Cockney friend gave his inimitable side wink, 
expectorated on to my boot and remarked : 

" Seen 'im darn Mile End way ; a damned ole Indian 
'awker, hout 'ere in the Sarth Seas aselling doar-mats and 
getting raund gals — that's wat 'e 'is ! " 

We saw this sight : Abduh Allah with one knee bent 
Islamic wise as he dangled before Waylao's eyes a fascinat- 
ing brass leg-bangle. It was a sight replete with Biblical 

^ Little girls. 
34 



THE MAGIC CARPET BAG 

import, resembling nothing so much as a modernised South Sea 
version of the devil's first love affair in the Garden of Eden. 

From all that I perceived I was convinced that the 
magic carpet with all its possibilities wasn't in it with that 
little Islamic carpet bag. It could overthrow creeds and 
heathen deities ; it brought thousands of dusky maids to 
the feet of that old fraud, the harem-keeper of Mecca — 
Mohammed. It was even hinted that the devil himself sighed 
amongst the forest mangroves, when the heathen maids 
crowded by the hut doors and the stealthy old Indian opened 
that little carpet bag. I managed to see Waylao alone, 
and begged the favour of escorting her home. I well knew, 
from her own confession, that she must not be too late. 
Old Takaroa, the great high chief, who bad ceased to pound 
the big drum, and was telling me in vehement pidgin- 
English mighty incidents of his high lineage, tried to detain 
me longer in vain. My wish to accompany the half-caste 
girl was greater than my affection for that Marquesan chief 
and his kind. I admit I was deeply interested in those 
old chiefs. And some day, when the seas are safe from 
submarines and high explosives, when the war fever has 
subsided from the martial bosoms of the Western world's 
high chiefs, I'll cast my disembowelling instruments and 
guns on to the rubbish heaps and sail away down South 
once more. 

I have basked in the spiritual light of the abstruse 
pages of Heraclitus, Empedocles, Plato, Socrates, Plotinus, 
Olympiodorus, Proclus, Synesius, down to Spinoza and Kant 
of the latest Old Gang, with the result that I am determined 
to live my life amongst uncivilised peoples, peaceful semi- 
heathen people of the Solomon Isles. How happy will 
I be ! I've still a life before me — ^the consequence of 
beginning young. 

O happy days ! I recall the tumbling, moonlit, silvered 
seas breaking silently afar as I strolled by the side of that 
half-caste girl. We had left the barbarian festival behind. 
When we arrived at her bungalow her mother welcomed 
me with a smile, but with the impulsiveness of her tribe 
swore at Waylao with much vigour. 

35 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Wheres you been ? You lazy tafoa vale [beachcomber], 
I told you come 'omes soons." 

" Kaoah ! Whaine ! Aue ! " wailed the maid, soothing the 
maternal wrath with swift Marquesan phrases that I could 
not understand. 

The maternal ire vanished completely as Waylao hung 
her head with shame, and the old mother shrieked : " Pere 

de N the good missions mans been 'ere. 'E want know 

whys you no be in mission-room these many days." Say- 
ing this, the old native woman took a deep swig from her 
pocket-flask, wiped her mouth and continued solemnly : 
"Ah, Wayee, though you belonger me, allee same you never 
be good Cliston womans like youse ole movtber, you no 
good — savee ? " 

I was invited into that little homestead. It was wonderful 
how neat and civilised it looked within. A grandfather's 
clock ticked out its doom in the comer of the cosy parlour. 
On the walls were old oil paintings of English landscapes, 
also a few faded photographs of Benbow's — ^Waylao's 
father's — relatives. The furniture was better than one 
might see in many a Kentish cottage. The old sailor had 
evidently fashioned his South Sea home so that it might be 
reminiscent of other days. Not the least important item 
of that homestead was the large barrel of rum which stood 
by the unused fireplace, a grim, silent symbol of what wild 
carousals ! I, of course, knew not then that Benbow's 
home-coming from sea was a mighty event in the monotonous 
lives of the settled beachcombers who dwelt beneath the 
shading palms by Tai-o-hae. 

Sometimes Waylao came to the shanty and sang as I 
played the violin. All this to me was very pleasurable. 
But one must not suppose that I had no other purpose or 
ambition in life beyond playing sentimental solos to hand- 
some half-caste maids and impecunious sailors who had 
seen "better days." Indeed I took all advantage of my 
musical accomplishments, attending as soloist many social 
functions at the French Presidency. I also ingratiated 
myself into the good graces of high-class Marquesan chiefs 
and chiefesses — many of the surviving members of the old 

36 



SOUTH SEA HONOURS 

barbarian dynasty. For a while I became a kind of South 
Sea troubadour among those semi-civilised savages, gathering 
experience and honours enormous. 

Old chiefs, dethroned kings and discarded queens, after 
hearing my solos, conferred upon me their highest honours. 

It was in a pagan citadel in the north-western bread-fruit 
forests, after performing Paganini's bravura Carnaval de 
Venise variations, that a mighty, tattooed monarch in- 
vested me with the South Sea equivalent of the Legion of 
Honour. 

This degree was bestowed upon me in ancient style. 
Kneeling before the bamboo throne, I kissed the royal feet 
amid the wildest acclamations of the whole tribe. I was 
then tattooed on the right arm with peculiar spots, which 
turned out to represent a constellation of stars that were wor- 
shipped by that particular tribe. (I have those tattoo marks 
to this day.) I recall the admiration of the Marquesan belles 
as I stood by the bamboo throne wearing my insignia of 
knighthood — the whitened skull of some old-time warrior ! 
I recall the music of the forest stream as it hurried by, and 
the noise of the winds in the giant bread-fruits, the monotone 
of the ocean beating inland as a majestic accompaniment 
to the musical exclamations of " Awai ! Awai ! Alohao ! 
Talofa ! " from the coral-red lips of sun-varnished savage 
girls, handsome, tattooed, lithesome, deep-bosomed chiefs, 
and youths. 

I have been honoured with so many degrees, so many 
knighthoods, and so often elected to the peerage that it is 
no exaggeration on my part to say that I am a veritable 
living volume of all that's distinguished — a genuine 
personification of Who's Who. 

I achieved far-flung fame as a mighty Tusitala, singer of 
wondrous songs on magic-wood with long spirit-finger 
(violin bow). Old semi-nude poets, scribes of the forest, 
left their forum-stumps of the village and followed me from 
village to village. Beautiful girls, arrayed in picturesque 
tappa of delicate leaves and shells, threw golden forest 
fruits at my feet, and then stood hushed, with finger to 
their lips as I played again. Kind, babbling old native 

37 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

women called me into their village homesteads,^ and without 
ceremony made me sit down and eat large gourds of taro 
and scented poi-poi, which was made of bananas and many 
indigenous fruits. As I seated myself on the homestead 
mat and ate, those kind old Marquesan women would squat 
and gaze upon me with intense curiosity, evincing little 
embarrassment at my presence. Indeed they would touch 
my white flesh, and one curious old chiefess leaned forward 
and lifted the upper lid of my eyes so as to better scan the 
unfamiliar colour, the grey-blue iris that so pleased those 
Marquesan ladies. 

Though those heathen citadels had numerous advantages 
which left the vaxmted claims of civilisation far behind, they 
had a few disadvantages. For, to speak truth, the township 
bailiff would arrive at the author's, poet's, or artist's hut 
door with a regiment of determined warriors who were often 
armed with rusty ship's cutlasses, ponderous war-clubs and 
heathen battle drums. It was no uncommon sight to meet 
some tribal poet flying with his trembling family across the 
mountain tracks in the agony of some great fear. 

It was my lot to assist a distressed poet who was flying 
from the aforesaid avenging law. When I came across him 
he was camped with his wife and little ones on a plateau 
to the southward of Tai-o-hae. Hearing the troubles and 
facts of his case, I bade him fear not. Ere sunset I had 
taken him back into his native village so that he might 
appear before the tribunal chiefs. In the meantime he, with 
his little ones and trembling wife, stood in the background 
as I appealed on his behalf. After much gesticulation and 
argument, and many stirring violin solos performed before 
the whole tribe, I turned to the distressed Marquesan poet, 
and said, as I touched his shaggy head with my violin bow : 
" Arise, Sir Knight of Tai-o-hae ! " Nor shall I easily forget 
the consternation of the tribe or the fleeting delight of my 
bankrupt poet's countenance at this gracious act of mine, 
when I explained to all the assemblage how I possessed the 
power to dub one with the glory of English knighthood. 
So did I bring happiness to a savage author, and I believe 
he achieved mighty fame in consequence of my impromptu 

38 



A LITTLE HELEN OF HEATHEN TROY 

act. One thing I know, that his misdemeanours and debts 
after that event were looked upon with extreme favour, 
and his songs were sung and engraved on the receptive 
brains of island races as far as the equatorial Pacific Isles. 

For a long time I roamed at will among the tribes of that 
strange land. I recall one village that was nestled by a blue 
lagoon ; the bird-cage, yellow bamboo huts were sheltered 
by the natural pillared architecture of gnarled giant trees. 
The scene presented to my imagination some miniature 
citadel of ancient Troy as the romping, pretty, sun-varnished 
children rushed up to me. One pretty maiden was a veri- 
table Helen, and the tawny youths loved to bathe in the 
sunlight of her sparkling glances. They even looked askance, 
frowningly upon me, as, like some wandering Odysseus, I 
wooed her with tender strains on my violin, and held her 
up and admired the forest blossoms that adorned the glory 
of her dishevelled tresses rippling down to the dimples of 
her cremona-like varnished shoulders. "Aloue! Awaie ! 
Talofa ! " said she, as the little woman in her soul gave 
wanton glances. She caressed my hand, and all the while, 
from those Hellenic-like enchanted forest glades, stared the 
envious little Trojans and Achaeans who would slay each 
other to wholly possess her charms. She was only about 
eight years of age, but I could well believe that she inspired 
in the hearts of those youthful barbarians some epic glory 
of long-forgotten, fierce, bronzed lovers and romance, that 
seemed to sing over their heads as fitful sea-winds sang in 
the lyric trees. 

Ah me ! I suppose some Paris arrived in due course from 
the civilised world and lured her from the arms of her dusky 
chief. And now 'tis only I of all the world would wish to be 
the Homer to sing her faery-like beauty, her childhood's 
charms. 

I never saw her again. 

Talking in this strain reminds me of a Homeric character 
who suddenly arrived at Tai-o-hae. He was a wondrous- 
looking being, attired in vast pants that were held up by a 
monstrous, erstwhile scarlet sash, and a helmet-hat with 
another coloured swathing about it. He looked Homeric 

39 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

enough, indeed he could have walked on the stage anywhere on 
earth as Ulysses. He strode into the grog shanty, gazed half 
scornfully at the congregated shellbacks and ordered one 
quart of rum ! He swallowed same rum in two gulps, then, 
looking round the bar, asked the astonished, staring shell- 
backs if their mothers knew they were out ! The general 
atmosphere grew hot and thundery. It was only when his 
massive, vandyke reddish-bearded, sun-tanned face became 
wreathed in smiles, and his deep-set fiery eyes laughed, that 
we all realised that his apparently insulting manner was 
simply some fine overflow of inherent humour. His com- 
manding way and height seemed to inspire all the respect 
that his rough audience had at their command. Ere he had 
shouted for his ninth rum, he got boisterous, drew an old 
Colt revolver from his dirty, blue, folded shirt and brandished 
it about as the whole crew dodged, blinked and listened with 
respectful awe to all that he told. Unfortunately he had to 
depart the next day on the same schooner that had brought 
him to Nuka Hiva. But he really did make up for his short 
introduction. He sang wondrous songs of adventure in far- 
off lands, of farewells to tender Nausicaas, of Circes and 
Calypsos, thundering forth in majestic strain of mighty 
warriors whom he had put out of action with one blow of his 
massive fist. His voice — well, all I can say is, "What a 
voice ! " The shanty shook as he sang. The whole crew 
were transported into some age of Elysian lawlessness as 
he looked at us, darkling, spoke of Cimmerian tribes on 
isles of distant seas, and hinted of things that would have 
made blind old Homer tremble with envy. As he sang, a 
flock of naked goddesses on their way home from fishing in 
the ambrosial waters happened to peep into the shinty to 
see who sang so wonderfully well and loud. I shall never 
forget the massive gallantry, the inimitable Homeric grace 
of his manner when he sighted those maids, put forth his 
arms and sang to the pretty eyes of those Marquesan girls. 
As he stood there in the bar, his helmet-hat almost bashed 
against the shanty roof, so tall was he, the maids looked up 
at him with coquettish, half-frightened glance as he sang on. 
There's no doubt he was handsome. What a nerve he had ! 

40 



THE TRUE HOMERIC SPIRIT 

Did not care one rap for the old beachcombers who looked 
on and wondered if they dreamed his remarkable presence. 
The muscles swelled on his neck like whipcord and his huge 
nostrils dilated in fine style. When he brought his enormous 
fist down on the bar to emphasise some bravura point, the 
empty batch of rum-mugs seemed to do a double shuffle with 
astonishment. I admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when 
he replaced his fire-iron in his belt and demanded : " Rum 
— no sugar — damn you ! " His vast Quixotic moustache 
backed to within two inches of his broad shoulder curves 
and seemed some mighty insignia of virile manhood. I 
could have wept with the joy I felt as he praised my violin- 
playing. " Play that ageen, youngster," said he. Such 
fame I had never dreamed of achieving ! And when he ex- 
pectorated a swift stream of tobacco juice — no indecision, 
mind you — between the astonished faces of the two shell- 
backs who were sitting by the open window, my admiration 
for his prowess was something that thrills me to this day. 

Though men doubt if Homer's Odyssean characters ever 
lived, I for one have no doubt whatever that such redoubtable 
characters once walked the earth. For I met such men when 
the world was young. 

That uninvited guest came into our presence, massive and 
wonderful, some strange embodiment of heroic romance 
and lore ; then departed like unto a dream. He was the 
nearest approach to my idea of Odysseus that I ever came 
across. I can still imagine I hear the vibrant, melodious 
timbre of his utterance as he curses and swaggers up the little 
rope gangway that hung from the deck of the strange fore- 
and-aft schooner that had suddenly appeared in the en- 
chanted bay off Tai-o-hae. The very deck seemed to 
tremble as his big sea-boots crashed on board. Even the 
skipper gave one awesome glance at that giant figure of his 
as he rattled his antique accoutrements ; then with his 
huge, hairy, sun-tanned hand arched to his fine brow he 
stared seaward at the sunset. The dark saffron-hued canvas 
sails bellied to the soft warm winds as the outward-bound 
schooner went out on the tide, as he stood on deck and faded 
away on the wine-dark seas. 

41 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

I could write many chapters on such men, their ways, 
virtues and sins. They were strange, unfathomable beings 
of Time and Space : men who followed their own wishes, 
who reigned as king over their own life : men who were 
disciples of the great transcendental school of the genuine 
old idealists — those spiritualists of the Truth, the wise and 
the beautiful, happy in the glad excitement of the wide and 
wonderful. They were men who in the great desert of life 
had found a wonderful oasis — in themselves ! Men who 
were born to command themselves, standing on their own feet, 
standing apart from the supreme stagnation of conventional 
civilisation. 

Heaven knows how it was, but I always liked that class. 
They were, to me, the posthumous books, works of long- 
forgotten heroes, the only works that I ever read with deep 
educational interest : they are still books to me, shelved 
tenderly in the library of my memory ; books that I so well 
know are born to be sneered at, buffeted about and criticised, 
ye gods, by weak-kneed chapel disciples and all the sensual, 
godless, hypocritical survivals that pose as the personifica- 
tion of the beautiful. 



42 



CHAPTER III 

Another Comrade — Things as I found Them — Taking Photographs — 

I introduce P6re de N — Penitent Natives — I witness a 

Native Domestic Scene 

AFTER the passing of Odysseus I met another good 
comrade, B . He proved an estimable pal, and 
was of Scottish descent, consequently his mental 
equipment was valuable and enabled him to discern an in- 
telligent joke, and laugh, if somewhat sadly, over English 
humour. 

The absence of ordinary humour in the Scots is pro- 
verbial ; but let me maintain that this proverbialness 
originated in England. The English, being unable to see 
through any joke other than their own, or a joke that had 
its point in the discomfiture of another, at once accuse the 
breezy, pithy Scot of lack of humour. The cahimnies of my 
countrymen have misled me more than once. From my 
earliest recollection I can recall the old saying : "As mean as 
a Jew." One can imagine my astonishment when travelling 
across the desolate, far-off spaces of the world, penniless and 
starving, I found my countrymen firing guns at me — whereas 
the Jews rushed to my assistance, and of all hosts proved 
the most courteous, gentle and generous. 

I also found that the Japanese, Chinese and Kafirs were 
the cleanest livers, both in their persons, morals and 
domesticity. I discovered the French to be stoical, taking 
their pleasures sadly, phlegmatic and fearless. The Italians 
were mostly unmusical, the reverse of vindictive, and hated 
olives. The Germans I've met envied all that was British, 
sang old English melodies and vomited at the sight of 
sausages ! I found the Irish somewhat humourless, but 
steadfast in friendship and good peacemakers during 
troublous times ! I have lived with Turks and Armenians 
and found them deeply religious, clean in their mode of living 

43 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

and general outlook on life. As for the Greeks, those de- 
scendants of blind old Homer, I found them positively with- 
out any musical ear at all, impoetic and even devoid of the 
simple love of Art that I discerned amongst the natives of 
Timbuctoo. I found Persians and Indians unphilosophical, 
exceedingly effeminate, and beyond the long grey beard, 
wise demeanour and picturesque turban of the Indian seer, 
I found no trace whatever of poetic ability, nor did I per- 
ceive otherwise than a great hatred for Indian curry. 

The English I have always found gullible, and the finest 
hypocrites extant ; brave, yet submissive under serfdom rule, 
and real stick-at-homes — such home-birds that the great 
cities of the world have arisen through their love of settling 
down ! Americans I have met were decidedly undemocratic, 
unhurried in business, and in and out of their homes courteous 
and reserved. I observed that the cannibals, the wild men 
of the South Seas, were handsome, intelligent and poetical, 
their inherent love of peace being their most striking 
attribute. But I digress. 

My comrade B — — possessed a camera, and as he was 
anxious to secure original photographs of natives and native 
life, I at once agreed to go off with him to the many scattered 
villages around and inland from the shores of Nuka Hiva. 

The least said about some of those photos the better. B 

had a contract with some publisher in Fleet Street, London, 
who desired native types for the halfpenny classics. Anyway, 
I can affirm that I placed my hand before my eyes and gazed 
seaward from the mountain villages more than once as my 
comrade followed the practical part of his tour through 
Southern Seas. And I will say on B— — 's behalf that much 
that the reader may imagine exists in the imaginative mind 
only ; that a background of palms and bread-fruit trees 
framed by mountain peaks ma kes a bevy of laughing girls with 
starry eyes and nut-brown knees (and, mind you, a mighty 
chief standing just by with huge war-club) a picture of perfect 
innocence not lacking poetic charm. 

I recall that we came across a Chinaman in distress, in the 
act of being strangled by a Marquesan chief. We were 
passing through a mountain village when this adventure 

44 



A TRUE MISSIONARY 

came to us. " O savee me ! E killiee poor Chiiiemans ! " 
yelled the yellow-skinned Celestial as he lifted his head, 

squirmed and appealed to us. B and I immediately 

gripped the chief's leg and, giving a mighty pull, pulled him 
from the yellow man's belly. The Marquesan still gripped 
the Chinaman's pig-tail. Meanwhile the village children 
came rushing around us, screaming with sheer glee as they 
witnessed the struggle. I gave that chief a plug of tobacco 
as a bribe ; he immediately rose to his feet, his mighty, 
tattooed chest swelling with the fierce desire that afflicted 
him as he grasped the tobacco and smiled his thanks. As 
he strolled away and coughed, and the children and shaggy- 
haired native women drew their rugs around them for sorrow 
that the fight was over, I asked the Celestial what he had 
done to fire such wrath. 

"Me ! noee dooey anytink. Markesans man hittiee me 
'hind ear cause I sell woman's one, two, three nicee opium 
pipe." 

B and I had our suspicions, but we wiped the blood 

off his face with leaves and fixed him up. He thanked us 
in pidgin-English, then waddled away. 

I liked B , but unfortunately he had to leave the next 

day, for his boat was sailing for Papeete. I saw him off 
early, at dawn. Then I went up the slopes and saw the old 
missionary, Pere de N — — (Father O'Leary I will call him). 
He had just had his morning bath. His few grey hairs were 
still steaming as he stood bareheaded in the fierce sunlight 
that blazed over the mountains. I also had just bathed in 
those cool morning waters and had watched the broad awaken- 
ing of the bright day. I saw the golden light of the sunrise 
touch the paddling, curling wings of a migrating flock of 
far-off parrots, twinkling as they sped away, fading like 
tiny canoes across the rifts of blue in the seaward sky. 
Those birds have flown away to their last roost these many 
years ; but still over the azure heaven they pass, yes, as the 
priest once more turns away from the blue lagoon. As he 
stands before my memory I wipe my feet on an old shirt, 
for towels are scarce, and watch the ecclesiastic as he thought- 
fully pulls his beard. Now he tugs the mission bell rope. 

45 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Over the slopes comes another chime from the special mission 
building wherein Queen Vaekehu sings hymns and prayers 
for the sake of past sins. It sounds familiar, yet strange, to 
hear those bells in the wild South Seas. The priest looks 
worried ; so much I notice at a glance as I stroll into the 
mission-room and proceed with my job, for I have come that 
morning to mend the broken stops in the mission harmonium. 

Pere de N sighs, nor is it to be wondered at. Waylao 

and many of his flock are missing from early morning prayers. 
Well enough he knows the temptations that come to his flock 
on festival occasions : they are all semi-heathens, the penitent 
dusky maids, youths and chiefs with tawny wives who dwell 
around me. The holy Father is not at all a bigoted man. 
He often sighs in the thought of how white men rush across 
the seas, their brains afire with enthusiasm to paint the 
cannibal isles with tints of beauty — to make dark-skinned 
people as white as the driven snow. He well knows that 
rouged lips and jetty eyelashes do not make a whore a saint. 

I have seen tears in the eyes of that old priest when tattooed 
chiefs once more turned up at his mission-room, fell on their 
trembling knees and bellowed forth fervent prayer, their voices 
shaky with fear and remorse — voices that smelt, alas ! of gin. 

Even as the old priest stands pondering in the bright sun- 
light and I watch, the reactionary period has set in, for lo ! 
out of their huts one by one they creep, coming down the 
track to pray. Poor old Mazzabella, the great chiefess, 
staggers in front as they walk in Indian file. She is the 
essence of true belief and the finest example of tattoo art 
extant. Ye gods ! only last night the moon hid its face behind 
its cloud-wisp handkerchief as the assembled tribe cheered 
with delight, and gazed with ecstatic admiration on her fat, 
whirling limbs of carven, hieroglyphic savage beauty. Her 
big throat pulses with the emotion she feels as she staggers 
on. Behind her totters three ridi-clad royal chiefs (one is a 
dethroned king, both his ears are missing). Their retinue 
consists of three more penitent maids. They are in full 
church dress — a loin-cloth and bright yellow silk stockings 
— finery that is fresh from the Islamic carpet bag. 'Tis 
grievously essential to tell one these things, for they are 

46 



WHERE SOUTH MEETS WEST 

characteristic details, necessary, and full of the pathos of true 
native life. Even as I watch and mend the broken bellows of 
the sacred harmonium, I see the pathetic light in the Father's 
eyes change to an amused twinkle, and no wonder ! for, as 
poor Mazzabella kneels down in the pew, her mouth sobbing 
with ecclesiastical anguish, she takes a nip of rum out of the 
flask which she has hidden beneath her tappa gown. 

Though I have not been long in the South Seas, I feel 
that there is no denying that a pick-me-up after a modern 
tribal festival is essential. In the olden days, ere casks of 
rum and Bibles were imported on sister ships to the isles, such 
pathetic duplicity was comparatively unknown. It is the 
combination of the Old World's sins with the New World's 
sins that is so disastrous to the native's nervous system. 
Indeed so disastrous has been the introduction of Bibles and 
rum to the sins of the Old World that many an isle is to-day 
perfectly virtuous — for the whole native population, devoid 
of hiunan passions, lie silent and sinless in their graves. 

As the priest stands before those rows of dusky, savage 
faces, droning forth in reverent monotones the morning 
prayers, I finish my job and creep out of the mission-room. 
I have mended his harmonium gratuitously. I like the old 
fellow and know he's as poor as a church mouse. How else 
could he be but poor, since he was earnest in his belief ? 

Again I am out in the glorious sunlight. As I walk be- 
neath the bread-fruit trees I recall my promise ; for I have 
quite forgotten to fetch the new-laid eggs for my host, a 
white settler hard by who has kindly given me shelter till I 
get a ship. Up the slopes I go, hurrying on. The parrots 
shriek, flapping away from the topmost branches. In a 
few moments I reach my destination — old Lydia's cottage. 
Her new-laid eggs are noted for size and cheapness. I stand 
in hesitation by the doorway. It is quite evident that I've 
called whilst a little domestic drama is in progress. I listen, 
for I too suffer from the great weakness of mankind. 
" Deary me am ! Poor chiles, mitia — ^Awai, Talofa ! " 
My poor Wayee, you sick ? — and so sleep late these morning ? 
Poor chiles." 

As I listen to the foregoing I still hesitate beneath the 

47 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

coco-palms. I can. see through the slightly opened doorway. 
Old Lydia is stirring scented poi-poi on the galley stove. 
It is for poor sick Waylao. Alas ! that I must confess that 
as I watch the honour that should be mine is mesmerised 
by the scene before me. There stands Waylao in com- 
plete deshabille by her mother's side. Her unloosened hair 
falls in tangled masses to her dimpled shoulders. She has 
evidently hastily attired herself in that silken blue kimono 
gown. Her feet are bare. Her old mother looks positively 
jealous as the girl, sitting down on a chair, commences to 
pull on the Oriental, silk, pink-striped stockings. 

"Wheres you git 'em?" screams the native mother 
with delight, eyeing the stockings with vivacious, child-like 
approval. 

Again I remember that I am an honourable white man. 
Why should I pry on such domestic innocence ? I attempt 
to stride towards the door and make my presence known, but 
my steps are arrested by a cry of joy. I make a mighty effort 
to be blind to it all — then I look. Old Lydia stands en- 
tranced, her mouth wide open with delight, for lo ! Waylao 
has succeeded in bribing the old mother's curiosity as to where 
she'd been the night before — has given her a brilliant pair of 
pink, yellow-striped stockings ! 

Yes, there stands old Lydia ; in a moment she had pulled 
the stockings on, and now before the big German mirror sways 
and swerves in the most grotesque postures as the green and 
yellow stripes reach above her dusky knees. 

Knowing not what else might occur, I hastily shuffle, cough 
loudly and knock at the door ! It opens wider. The old 
Woman grins from ear to ear, as, puff ! — ^Waylao leaps out 
of sight into the next room. 

Native instinct is deep : old Lydia stares at me suspiciously^ 
With the external politeness of Western guile I blow my nose 
and make an attempt to appear more serious than usual. 

I purchase the eggs. 

" Nice eggs and good cheap," says the old woman. 

" Yes, very good," I mutter. 

" Good-morning, Aloha ! Miss Waylao," I say jokingly 
through the door chink as I spy Benbow's daughter. 

48 



WISE OLD FOREST TREES 

No answer comes. But as I stroll away I look back and 
just catch a glimpse of the girl's face as she gazes after me 
through the little lattice window, I wave my hand, and 
she responds with a smile. 

It seems a romantic isle to me as I stroll along. The very 
trees bend over me like wise old friends, wailing the lore of 
ages as the winds creep in from the empurpled seas. The 
exotic odours of forest flowers intoxicate my senses ; they 
seem bright, living eyes of woods as they dance to the 
zephyrs. The very tinkle-tinkle of the stealing stream at 
my feet seems some wonderful song of sentient Nature as 
it ripples its accompaniment to the "Wai-le woo! wai-le 
woo ! willy O ! " of the mano alia (morning nightingale) as 
I fade into the forest shadows. 



49 



CHAPTER IV 

Water-Nymphs — Ranjo's Bath and Problem — The Old Hulk — Its 
Tenants — My Birthday — Shellback Accommodation—Washing 
Day 

A DAY or so after the events of the preceding chapter 
I became chummy with the inhabitants of the beach. 
I had seen them before, but had kept slightly aloof. 
Finding me a musical vagabond at heart, they at once took 
me to their bosom. Before my reader becomes also in- 
timately acquainted with them I will describe their quaint 
dwelling-place and its poetical surroundings. 

God's bluest sky lit the world as I roamed beneath the 
coco-palms. I had just left the kind host's shanty wherein 
I had stayed for two or three days. It seemed like a dream 
to me as I reflected over all that had happened since I left 
the old country. The birds with brilliant wings in the bread- 
fruits, the beating of the native drums in the villages, and 
the tawny coco-nuts hanging over my head made me 
strangely happy. As I roamed beneath the palms I came 
to a hollow : it was near the Catholic mission-room. I heard 
a noise. It was Father O'Leary's tired feet treading the 
musical treadmill, which is commonly known as the har- 
monium. I did not linger near that sacred spot ; it reminded 
me too much of my childhood's Sunday school afternoons 
in the British Isles. 

I strode down and out of the forest shadows. Before me 
lay miles of winding coast. The odours of the forests breathed 
enchantment. As I stood beneath the flamboyant trees, 
and the migrating cockatoos screeched weirdly, I gazed at 
the ocean. Round the bend of that magic shore, just to the 
right of me, were droves of sea-nymphs. Their curly, wind- 
tossed hair streamed down their backs as they dived and 
splashed in the blue lagoons. 

As I dream on once more, the scene vividly presents itself 

50 



RANJO'S ASTRONOMY 

before my eyes, as I seem to stand again beneath the bread- 
fruit tree and watch those dusky, sportive angels. There 
they splash in the blue waters by the promontory. Soft- 
fingered paddles propel their delicate, shining bodies along. 
I see their eyes sparkling as the}?^ look shoreward and see me. 
I hear a wild shriek of fright as they mark my white face, 
then — splash ! they have all dived into the deep blue sea — 
no sportive faeries, but native girls having their morning 
bath! 

As I walk along the shore a more wonderful sight greets 
my gaze. 

By the shore grog shanty, that lies just by the hollows, is 
something in the ocean that looks like the weather-beaten 
figurehead of a sunken Chinese junk. Suddenly it moves ; 
at last two hands rise from the depths and start to rub with 
cleansing vigour the matted hair and crooked-nosed face. 
It is the gnarled, wrinkled physiognomy of Ranjo, the store- 
keeper of the grog shanty. He, too, is having his morning 
bath. As he stands there reflecting, immersed to the shoulders, 
he is deep in thoughts that are as vital to him as the problem 
of the visible universe. He does not yearn to probe Space 
and fathom the distance of the stars and the marvels of far- 
off worlds ; he is simply wondering how he can manage to 
get those unprincipled beachcombers to pay their bills ! 

Not far away from Ranjo's spacious bath is the promon- 
tory, on which grows three-plumed coco-palms. It looks like 
a tiny track from the sea that leads up, up into the vastnesses 
of the distant mountains. On the shallows of the sands, just 
below the promontory, lies the huge, wrecked hulk of the old 
windjammer, the South Sea Rover. Washed ashore during 
a terrific hurricane some years before, she lies almost high 
and dry, rotting and bleaching in the tropical suns. As I 
stare at that old hulk, the carved figurehead's outstretched 
hands seem, to me, symbolical of that indefinable appeal to 
the heart which one feels in the atmosphere of great poetry. 
The praying hands point seaward, yes, to the far-off, dim, 
blue sky-line, as though, in her derelict old age, she longs to 
catch the tide, to go a-roving again with her merry crew. 

Bobbing about by her stem is another shoal of native girls. 

51 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

As they turn somersaults in the wann liquid depths, only 
their small brown feet appear on the surface — such pretty 
feet they are. 

Notwithstanding the picturesque sight, my attention is 
riveted elsewhere. Lo ! something magically wonderful 
occurs. Suddenly, in the full flood of sunlight, that silent 
derelict hulls seems to mysteriously reveal the ghosts of her 
old crew. Lo ! there they are : a dozen typical, weather- 
beaten sundowners of the ocean highways. Up they come, 
creeping through the rotting deck hatchway, clothed in 
bright-buttoned rags and dilapidated peaked caps, climbing 
one by one out of the hulk's deep hold. My word ! such 
weird, unshaved beings they look, but withal, ghosts in one 
sense only ; they positively hate anything of a solid nature 
that resists muscular power — for they belong to the highest 
order of The Sons of Rest ; in short, they are genuine beach- 
combers. Yes, reader, they were my beloved shellbacks 
and vagabonds of Tai-o-hae. 

That old hulk was their home. I also have slept beneath 
those gloomy hatchways, many, many a time. But it was 
the first time that I had spied them coming out of doors, so 
to speak. 

I see by my diary that I kept at that period that that day 
was my fifteenth birthday. I suppose that I enlightened 
some of those old shellbacks as to the fact, for it says here : 

" Monday, September 3rd. — ^My birthday, am fifteen years 
old. How time flies ! I feel quite ancient. Treated right 
royally by the big, sunburnt men from the seas. The red- 
bearded man who swears most terribly made me drink my 
own health in whisky. Phew ! it tasted like lime-juice and 
paraffin oil. Felt sick — was sick. Had fine time. Two 
native girls danced roimd me in the shanty's card saloon. 
They kissed me — it's the fashion here. I turned quite red. 
Pretty girls. What would they think of it all in England ? 
Slept on the old hulk last night, my birthday night, with a 
lot of jovial, fierce shellbacks. Played the violin to them in 
the bowels of the ship — it's a wreck — they had a barrel of 
rum or strong beer down there with them — what a night ! 
The very waves roared with laughter as the wild choruses 

52 



PAGANINI OF THE SOUTH SEAS 

echoed in that ship's wooden inwards. I do like low men. 
Slept well." 

There is a good deal more here in my diary about those 
times, but I think it wiser not to publish it as it stands, so I 
will proceed from memory. 

I recall those wild choruses as though it were yesterday ; 
yes, as they blessed my name, and one by one fell asleep. 

It was surprising how comfortable they had made their 
derelict home. Old ropes, empty barrels and rotting sails 
had been piled up so as to divide their sleeping apartments 
from the deck space. Rough bunks had been fitted up, 
filled with dead seaweed for mattresses, and were all that one 
could desire in the way of comfort. A little stove had been 
fixed by the mast stem that ran to the ship's bottom. Its 
smoke stack had been placed so as to run out of the port-hole 
on the starboard side. Once a week they did their washing. 
It was a sight worth seeing as they stooped over the big 
empty beef casks, rubbed and rubbed away as they punctu- 
ated their labours with choice oaths — and what yams ! 



53 



CHAPTER V 

The Derelict Hulk — The Signal of Prosperity in Tai-o-hae — The 
Night Phantoms — Representative Types of Nations — Grimes 
the Cockney 

I CANNOT recall the history of that derelict hulk, from 
what port it sailed, or whether its crew found a refuge 
on that shore, or slumbered till the trump of doom 
beneath the sunny seas rolling to the sky-lines. All I know 
is, that it was beached there after buffeting its " roaring 
forties," and by the cut of its jib, the beautiful curves of 
the bows and figurehead, it must have sailed from its native 
port long before I, or even its new derelict crew, were bom. 
Could an aspiring novelist have hidden in that hulk's depth 
and listened, he would have gathered enough vivid material 
to have lasted his lifetime. 

The most wonderful sight on that hulk, to me, at anyrate, 
was when the washing was hmig out to dry. The clothes- 
line stretched from the forecastle to a portion of deckhouse 
stanchions amidships. On that clothes-line would hang — 
fitting flags for that derelict — ^ragged old shirts and pants, 
flapping and waving their many-coloured patches to the 
South Sea breezes. Those rough men only did their washing 
when things were slack, which meant no ships in, and there- 
fore no treating going on in the grog shanty. Consequently 
the derelicts' washing-line was an indisputable dial, signal 
and sign-post. Nor do I exaggerate when I say that those 
old pants and shirts told of the prosperous hours of drunken 
glory, or of the slack times on the slopes of the Parnassus of 
beachcomberism. Indeed the incoming schooners of those 
days, creeping through the sky-lines from distant seas, would 
sight the ragged shirts or the empty clothes-line through the 
ship's telescope, and so know the exact state of affairs at 
Tai-o-hae. 

Several of the beachcombers, however, positively refused 

54 



WHERE SINNERS PRAY 

to sleep on that old hulk and told tales of night phantoms. 
Even the men who did sleep in those gloomy depths said 
they did not like the noises that they could hear on wild 
nights ; they had their suspicions. I must admit that some 
of the sounds I heard on that wreck at night did sound 
a bit uncanny. The masts were still standing, and on the 
yards hung the tattered rigging and rotting canvas. When 
the wind blew, even slightly, on hot nights, the rigging wailed. 
It would sound just like children crying in the night up there 
aloft. If the moon was out you could see shadows flitting 
across the grey sails and figures clinging to the moonlit 
rigging. These things made those superstitious shellbacks 
swear that the hulk was haunted at times by her old 
crew. 

"I know, I know," said one old fellow to me. "They 
comes back, climbs aloft and sings their old sea-chanteys, all 
out of their 'ere graves ; that's what it is." 

As those rough men became involved in a good deal that 
concerns my reminiscences, I will bring the reader into closer 
touch with them. As they crept up on to the deck, after a 
sound night's rest, they would yawn and gaze about them, 
and then stare at the blue sky. Possibly they were thankful 
to be alive, maybe had just said their prayers. " No fear," 
I hear you say. Well, it is faithfully recorded in the annals 
of beachcomberism that two or three of those sinful old shell- 
backs knelt by their bunks every night — and said their 
prayers. 

Passing down the plank gangway in single file to the sands, 
they made a bee-line for the Alpha and Omega of their 
existence — Ranjo's grog shanty. In that low-roofed saloon 
of the Southern Seas they sat enthroned on salt-beef tubs. 
Smoking their corn-cob pipes, they chewed plug tobacco, 
and proceeded religiously with their toilet — that is to say, 
one little small-tooth comb was handed around and each one 
combed his hair and tangled whiskers. One could search 
the world over and never sight so perfect a set of noble- 
looking vagabonds. Each one seemed some wonderful 
figurehead, some symbolical, living representative of a 
nation's typical emotion and crimes. They were far from 

55 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

being bad men, notwithstanding their twinkling eyes and 
grog-blossomed nasal organs. I'm not going into details 
over their birth and the university they honoured. I know 
nothing about their lost opportunities ; only one thing am 
I certain of — they were once boys. And, believe me, the 
boy, in a beautiful sense, still laughed and looked through 
their wicked eyes. Though dead for years, the boy's ghost 
still lived, and shed tears when the chill came as hope ran high. 
It did the same childish things — ^gave away the last shilling 
when it should have been kept ; and ah ! how many more 
ridiculous, boyish deeds. They were, in short, the world's 
worst men, and, as one knows, the world's worst men have 
virtues that are undreamed of in the hearts of the world's 
best men. 

The tallest was a typical Yankee specimen. I never saw 
so perfect a resemblance to a cartoon in the flesh as "Uncle 
Sam." His face was cadaverous, alert and pleasant-looking. 
The poise of his head told of imagined greatness, as one who 
felt that he had helped to create the universe as well as 
being a representative of the land of the almighty dollar. 
His chin resembled that of an aged billy-goat. Whenever 
he yawned or spat vindictively and yelled, " Waal, I guess," 
his long, pointed beard inclined towards the roof. Another 
represented three races : Japan, the South Sea and Yankee- 
land. This mixture had made an argumentative strain. 
Nor could he help it, however he tried. The three separate 
emotions of three separate strains would come into forcible 
conflict during pugnacious arguments — consequently one of 
his ears was missing. 

Yet another represented the Shamrock, the Thistle and 
the Rose. He had a huge, humorous mouth, merry blue eyes 
and a high bald head ; a head that was a veritable incubator 
for hatching wildly unprofitable schemes. Ah ! schemes 
that cracked through their shells so easily, just to flutter a 
little way and fall with broken wings, yes, on their first 
flight. Sometimes a new-born scheme even fluttered so far 
as to settle on a twig and sing sweetly for a moment, as 
though it yearned to express the hopelessness it felt, to write 
verse on the leaves with its tuneful beak, so that the old 



A MOTLEY CREW 

beachcombers would cheer with delight as they watched and 
yell deliriously ; 

" At last ! at last ! we've struck rich ! " — and then it fell — 
dead at their feet. 

In that motley crew was not one true representative of 
the John Bull type. There's no denying the fact, but the 
typical John Bull is too avid of comfort and abnormal self- 
respect, and all that is conventional, to be found sitting on 
a tub in a grog shanty in the South Seas. It was even 
ridiculous to expect to find a true Britisher there. To annex 
a continent, or even an isle, to explain the religious signifi- 
cance of the annexation, while hiding that renowned smile 
behind the old red, white and blue John Bull handkerchief, 
was natural enough ; but to find him sitting on an empty 
salt-beef tub in the South Seas — why, impossible, absurd ! 

Should he by chance be found there, rest assured it is 
in some mongrel state : some Britisher with the ravishing 
strain of the hilarious, inconsequential, romantic Irish ; or 
the Odyssean strain of the Italian cavalier or Spanish 
hidalgo's blood pulsing in his veins. Though, stay — there 
was one, by name Bill Grimes, a representative of the much- 
abused Cockney. 

Men have toiled over the inscrutable wonders of Cockney- 
ism. The short clay pipe, the black teeth, the perky shuffle 
of vile impertinence and blasphemous oaths have bedecked 
many a novelist's pages with inky crime. 

Believe me. Bill Grimes was a real out and outer good 'im. 
It is true enough that he chewed vilely and spat deliberately, 
so as not to miss, with that streaming certitude of black 
tobacco juice, when anyone capped his argument with in- 
disputable conviction. But do not men argue the world 
over ? Is it not far better to have a straightforward squirt 
of honest tobacco juice in one's eye than life-long, stealthy 
enmity behind one's back ? 

Ah, Bill Grimes (he's dead now), the blue of your eyes 
was not counterfeit ; your heart and voice had the genuine 
touch and true ring of the last half-crown you so often shared. 

Yes, there he sits ; what a face ! — more like a half -worn-out 
broom, with two clear, sparkling eyes peeping from it, than 

57 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

anything else. A real "low 'un" — and yet his mouth, 
sensitive-looking, firm as a beautiful woman's, as though 
ages back in British history some Roman captain, leader of 
invading legions, sighted and fell into the arms of a blue- 
eyed, golden-haired coster-girl, of leafy raiment and limbs of 
woaded beauty, as she pattered down that primitive Mile 
End Way. 

As Grimes sat there on his tub, he gave them back as good 
as they gave when they chaffed him. He was no fool. His 
old grandfather and grandmother kept a pawnbroker's shop 
down the Old Kent Road. He seemed to have tender 
memories of them and his kiddie days. 

" Gorblimy, a dear old soul she were. She knewed all 
about Boyron the poyet ; yes, she readed to me the poultry 
that made me wanter go to sea." 

" Fancy that," said I, as I looked into those fine, low eyes. 

"Yus; and I'm well connected, mate, I am. I had a 
hunkle on the Karnty Kouncil." (Here he pulled his 
trouser-legs up and spat through the open door with 
mathematical precision.) " Clever bloke 'e was." 

So would Grimes ramble on, telling me of old times, and of 
his first aspirations to go to sea, in his picturesque style, till 
I saw, in my imagination, the wrinkled old grandmother 
staring through her spectacles as the little grimy imp looked 
up at her and drank in the romance of life. 



58 



CHAPTER VI 

Tai-o-hae by Night— The Bowels of the Old Hulk— The Figurehead 
— A Mad Escape — South Sea Grog Shanty Barmen up to date — 
Men who shave their Beards off — Mrs Ranjo's Blush — The 
Potentialities of a Bit of Blue Ribbon — A Picture of the Grog 
Shanty's Interior — Pauline appears — Waylao appears — The 
Wonderful Dance of the Half-caste Girl — The Mixture of Two 
Races — ^The Music of a Marquesan Waltz 

GRIMES was a blessing in those days ; he was some- 
thing new to me in the way of man so far as my 
experiences went. 

We'd go off together and get some job on the plantations, 
get a little cash, then loaf by the beach, and by night sit 
together beneath the palms and dream. 

The surroundings of Tai-o-hae by night were something 
that, once seen, clung to the memory like some scene of 
enchantment. 

I wish I had the power to give a picture of that spot as 
night crept over the mountains, bringing its mystery. We 
would sit beneath the feathery palms and watch the snow- 
white tropic-bird wave its crimson tail as it swooped shore- 
ward. Far away the sun, sinking like a burning brand into 
the ocean, fired the sky-line waves. The chanting chorus 
of cicadoe (locusts) would commence tuning up in the bread- 
fruits, as the O le manu-ao (twilight nightingale) and one 
or two of its feathered brethren sought the heights of the 
giant palms to warble thanksgiving to the great god of 
Polotu, the heathen god of Elysium. So the natives told 
us when they crept from the huts hard by, and made 
fantastic, heathenish incantations with their faces to the 
sky, while the birds warbled. 

One songster was like an English blackbird. It would 
sit on the topmost bough and pour forth its song, " recaptur- 
ing its first fine careless rapture," and looking like some tiny 

59 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Spanish cavalier serenading the starlit walls of heaven, 
as the sky darkened and the wind ruffled the blue, feathery- 
scarf that seemed to be flung carelessly about its throbbing 
throat. 

Then we would hear the forest silence disturbed by the 
faint booming of the native drums in the villages, beating 
in the stars as, in one's imagination, those far-off starry 
battalions were marshalled slowly across the sky. 

The moon rose, brightening the pinnacles of the palm-clad 
mountains, bringing into clear relief the wild shores and 
quiet lagoons. The scene, for mUes, would appear like some 
vast canvas picture done in magical oils, daubs of moon- 
light, mysterious splashes of rich-hued tropical trees stand- 
ing beneath the wonderful perspective of stars twinkling 
across the tremendous dark blue canvas of night. 

Far away, tiny twirls of smoke rose from the huts of the 
villages and ascended into the moonlit air. 

But to me the sight of all was where some great artist 
of night seemed to have toiled to transcendental perfection 
on a bas-relief just visible by the promontory of that 
little island world ; a figure cut out in perfect lines of 
emblematical grief, the sad symbol of aspiring humanity, 
a beautiful, legendary woman, her carved arms outstretched, 
appealing eternally to the dim, greenish-blue horizon — the 
old hulk's figurehead. 

Only the curl and whitening of a wave by that wreck told 
of something real. Just up the shore stood the grog 
shanty, a ghostly light gleaming through its windows, and 
one pale flush streaming through the half-open door up the 
tall, plumed palms that half leaned over the corrugated tin 
roof. That was real enough ; for who ever heard of a grog 
shanty on the oil painting of a tropical landscape with wild 
song issuing from its inwards and echoing to the hills ? 

Such was a characteristic scene of Tai-o-hae by night 
before my eyes, while Grimes snored beside me. For we 
slept out for several nights, preferring the beach to the 
bowels of that old hulk. I'll tell you why. An escape, 
a Frenchman — from Noumea, I think — ^went raving mad 
one night down in that hold. Suddenly we were all 

60 



MAN'S APPEAL TO MAN 

awakened by terrible yells ; we jumped from our bunks and 
rubbed our eyes. I grasped an iron stanchion, determined 
to sell my life dearly, for I thought that the natives were 
aboard seeking " long-pig " for some cannibal feast. We 
soon realised the truth, for the poor escape had been peculiar 
for several days. He rushed up and down that dark hold 
shouting " Mon Dieu ! Merci ! " for he thought that he was 
about to be guillotined. 

Uncle Sam, Grimes, I and several others chased him up 
and down the hold, trying to catch him as he struck the 
vessel's side with his fists. His eyes rolled fearfully. He'd 
gone stark mad. We tried to appease him, told him it was 
all right, that we would not guillotine him. It was no use ; 
he fastened his teeth in Uncle's Sam's arm, thinking he was 
some Noumea surveillant who would lead him to that 
monstrous blade. 

He bolted up on deck as we all gripped him. Jove ! his 
clothing was left in our hands as he broke away in his wild 
delirium. He climbed aloft and up there he stuck. 

We had a terrible night of it. He yelled forth, in his 
native tongue, heart-rending appeals for mercy, awakening 
the native villages for miles around. 

He died next day. The weather was hot, so they buried 
him quickly in the quiet cemetery near the calaboose. 

So that I didn't fancy sleeping on the hulk for some time ; 
that night's adventure got on my nerves. 

But to return to the grog shanty. While Grimes slept 
on under the coco-palms I would creep into that bar, sit 
among those rough men and listen to the sounds of ! 
O I for Rio Grande, Blow the Man Down, etc., bellowed forth, 
as they spent the best part of the night recounting their 
manifold adventures. I was fascinated by the sight before 
me, for that motley crew resembled some strange postage- 
like stamp collection of men who had once been recognised 
as genuine currency by governments, but had long since 
gone through the post and had become valuable and rare — 
some of them. 

Mr and Mrs Ranjo, the grog shanty keepers, were delightful 
as they dodged from bar to bar, for they had one bar for 

6i 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

derelicts and another for those mysterious, hurried individuals 
who arrived with cash. In the saloon bar old Ranjo would 
put on his holiest and most obsequious smile, as he praised 
his whisky, remarking: "Ho yes, Hi see, sir, Hi halways 
thinks as 'ow honesty is the best policy." Saying this, he 
would swish his bar towel and hand another mixture of 
paraffin and methylated spirit to his customers, who were 
erstwhile bank managers, disillusioned ecclesiastics and men 
who had hurried from far countries and shaved their beards 
off. 

Mrs Ranjo would blush in the saloon bar over the very 
story that she herself would have told the beachcombers 
in the next bar. It seems absurd, but that blush and old 
Ranjo's "Ho" and "Hi see" increased the price of the 
drinks in the saloon bar by one hundred per cent. 

So one will see that culture existed also in the South Seas. 
A tweed suit or a massive watch-chain secured immense 
respect and unlimited trust from the Ranjos ; and that was 
everything, for one must remember that they owned the 
grog shanty. And this fact at Tai-o-hae or anywhere else 
in the South Seas gave them a social distinction of the 
highest rank ; indeed they were as king and queen of 
beachcomberland, and appreciation from them was equal 
to conferring a knighthood. 

No wonder these men were fascinated by the smiles of 
the Ranjos. To them, in their derelict times, a grog shanty 
was like that bit of blue ribbon with its many hidden 
potentialities — the ribbon that flutters at some pretty girl's 
throat, or in her crown of hair, that insensate adornment 
that is the first magnetic glimpse that awakens the romantic 
dreams of some impassioned boy, yes, and even the staid 
man of the world. But I must leave blue ribbons alone, 
also my reasons for mentioning them, till later, and tell of 
one memorable night. 

I was sitting in the grog shanty dreaming of old England, 
and wondering what my people would think could they see 
me playing my violin to that weird crew. I felt sure that 
it would have damped their ardour over any idea of my 
retrieving the family's fortunes during my travels. 

62 



PAULINE 

Well, as I sat there I noticed a handsome man (whom I 

will call John L ) stumble out of the bar as usual on his 

way home, drunk. He was seldom sober, had little to say 
and was regarded as a mystery by all. From hearsay I 
gathered that he had arrived in the Marquesan Group about 
ten years before, bringing a pretty mite of a girl with him. 
Probably he was one of those individuals who had hurried 
away from his native land so as to retain his liberty — or his 
neck. Anyway, the little girl interested me most. This 
little waif's name was Pauline, and she had, at this period, 
arrived at the stage when girlhood meets womanhood. 
Her mother was dead. We all knew that, because when 
John L — — was drunk he would sweep the stick he carried 
about, and sweep imaginary stars from the low roof of the 
shanty as he cursed the heavens and God. Even the 
Ranjos paled slightly during those fits of ungovernable 
frenzy, when he yelled forth atheistic curses till he fell 
forward and sobbed like a child. It would strike me with 
sorrow as well as horror to witness those paroxysms. 

John L — ■ — and his daughter lived in a little homestead 
situated up near the mountains that soared in the back- 
ground of Tai-o-hae. It was a wild spot this fugitive had 
chosen for his home in exile ; only the South Sea plovers 
passed over that place on their migrating flight to the 
westward. 

To me the memory of that homestead is like the " Forsaken 
Garden," a remote spot of that South Sea isle, its ghost of a 
garden still fronting the sea : 

" Where there was weeping, 
Haply of lovers none ever will know, 
Whose eyes went seaward, a hundred sleeping 
Years ago." 

It isn't a hundred years ago, though, but it seems so to me. 
I could half think that I dreamed that white wooden home- 
stead by the palms ; that it was some ghostly hamlet hidden 
up there in the wild South Sea hills — a beautiful phantom- 
like girl trembling inside — and Destiny knocking, knocking 
at the door. Ah, Pauline ! 

63 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

But to return to John L as he staggered away from the 

shanty into the darkness. I recall that his farewell sounded 
more like a death-groan than anything else. Almost every 
incident of that night is engraved on my memory. I still 
see the haggard, haunted face as he departs, and the shell- 
backs look into one another's eyes significantly. I can even 
remember the swaying of the palm leaves outside the open 
door as I saw them drift apart, revealing the moonlit seas 

beyond, and John L 's white duck-suit jacket fluttering 

between them as he staggered homeward. His thin-faced 
companion holds his arm — he's a sardonic-looking individual 
— and I, as well as the shellbacks, wonder why he tolerates 
such a sinister comrade. 

After their departure I played the fiddle once more, as 
that wonderful collection of the drifting brigade sat listen- 
ing. Serious faces, funny faces, bearded, expressionless 
faces, sensitive, cynical, philosophical, humorous, tawny and 
pasty faces, all holding rum mugs, and looking like big wax 
figures clad in ragged duck-suits, dirty red shirts and belted 
pants, wide-brimmed hats or cheesecutters, sitting there on 
tiers of tubs, while Ranjo swished his towel and served out 
drink. Over their heads were suspended multitudes of empty 
gin bottles, hanging on invisible wires. Each bottle held a 
tallow candle that dimly flickered as the faintest breeze blew 
through the chinks of the wooden walls and open doorway. 
And as I fiddled on with delight, it seemed as if that bar was 
some ghostly room stuck up in the clouds, and that in some 
magical way those fierce, disappointed, unshaved pioneers 
of life had stolen a constellation of stars of the third and 
forth magnitude, which shone, just over their sinful heads, 
in a phantom-roofed sky of ethereal deep blue drifts — tobacco 
smoke. 

Against the partition Ranjo had fixed a huge cracked 
ship's mirror, which had once adorned the saloon of a man- 
of-war, and which now revealed in a kind of cinematograph 
show all that happened within, and all who might enter. 

The fiddle, the banjo and the mouth-organ were in full 
swing. Grimes had come into the shanty and was sitting 
beside me, and the French sailors from the man-of-war in the 

64 



THE THRILL OF LOVE 

bay had just sung the Marseillaise for the last time and gone 
aboard. Suddenly the scene changed, silence fell over the 
shanty. I swear that I had only drunk a little cognac, so 
as to be sociable with Grimes, when something like an 
apparition stood before me, framed in the shanty's doorway ! 
It was a white girl. 

A deep gleam shone in her blue, star-like eyes ; her Ups 
were apart as though she were about to speak ; she seemed 
like some figure of romance, a strip of pale blue ribbon 
fluttering at her warm, white throat. 

The wild harmony of oaths and double-bass voices of good 
cheer ceased. Each beachcomber, each shellback, stayed 
his wild reminiscences. The new-comers, who were sym- 
pathetically treating the old-comers, fairly gasped as they 
turned to see the cause of the sudden silence. That tableau 
of astonishment and admiration on the grim, set faces of 
those bearded sailors made one think of some mysterious 
contortion of the Lord's Last Supper ; and they — a crew 
of sunburnt disciples looking at the materialised divinity 
of their dreams. 

The swashbuckler who spoke all day long about his pal 
Robert Louis Stevenson, and swore that he was the main 
character of that author's latest book on the South Seas, 
dropped his glass smash on the floor and muttered : 
"Whatabewt!" 

As for me, I felt the first thrill of romance since I went to 
sea, arrived in a far country with a black eye and took up 
my residence in a wharf dust-bin. 

The girl looked unreal, like some beautiful creation that had 
just stepped hurriedly out of the distant sky-line beyond 
the shanty's door. Her crown of rebellious hair seemed 
still afire with some magical glow of the dead sunset. Nor 
was I quite mad, for as the escaping tobacco smoke of that 
low-roofed den enshrouded her in bluish drifts, as the winds 
blew up the shore, she did look ghost-like, and her delicately 
outlined form seemed robed in some diaphanous material 
cut out of the vanished glory, the golden mist of the western 
skies. Hibiscus blossoms, scarlet and white, were wantonly 
entangled in her mass of loosened tresses that fluttered to 

E 65 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

the zephyrs, as though magical fingers caressed her and 
would call her back to the portals beyond the setting suns. 
Ah, Pauline, you were indeed beautiful. When I was 
young ! 

Her clear, interrogating eyes seemed to say : "Is dad 
here ? " 

I saw her lips tremble. She wavered like a spirit as I 
watched her image, and mine staring in the mirror beside 
her. 

None answered that gaze of hers. We all knew that her 
father had just gone staggering home, blind drunk, crying 
like a demented man. 

Even Queen's Vaekehu's valet de chambre (a ferocious- 
looking Marquesan who haunted the shanty, cadging drinks) 
looked sorry for the girl. 

Though it was years ago, I recall the sympathetic com- 
ments of those men, the look in their eyes, expressing all 
they felt. 

That picture of astonishment, the breathless stare of 
admiration on the upturned, bearded faces, resembled some 
wax-work show, a kind of Madame Tussaud's fixed up in 
a South Sea grog shanty. But I know well enough that 
those unshaved, apparently villainous-looking men gazed 
on the avatar of their lost boyhood's dreams. So grim 
did they look, all mimicked in the huge ship's mirror as they 
still held their rum mugs half-way between their lips, staring 
through the wreaths of smoke, in perfect silence. 

" Gott in Hinmiel I " said the Teuton from Samoa. 

" Mon Dieu ! " said the awestruck gendarme from Calaboose 
Hill. 

" A hangel form ! " gasped Grimes, as the three swarthy 
Marquesan women, who wore loose ridis and had no 
morals, grinned spitefully to see such admiration for a white 
girl. 

"Did you ever ! " sighed several more, as I laid the fiddle 
down and felt a warm flood thriU me from head to foot. 

Pauline vanished as swiftly as she came. Went off, I 
suppose, to seek her drunken parent. 

I half wondered if I had dreamed that glimpse of a white 

66 



A CHILD OF PASSION 

girl, a glorious creation here in the South Seas, by the awful 
beach near Tai-o-hae. It seemed impossible. 

Then the hushed voices subsided. Once again came the 
wild crescendos of ribald song from those lips, as the shanty 
trembled to the earthquake of some crashing finale of a wild 
sea-chantey and thumping sea-boots. 

"Grimes, have another," said I. So we drank again, 
and then again. 

What a night of adventure and romance that was, for 
another came out of the night like an apparition and 
startled us. 

I rose to go, and as I wished Grimes good-night two little 
native children, peeping in at the shanty door like imps of 
darkness, shouted " Kaolah ! " and suddenly turned and 
bolted in fright as I tossed them a coin. I turned to see 
what was up, and there stood Waylao. 

I noticed that her eyes had a wUd look in them. On her 
arm hung the old wicker-work basket wherein she always 
placed her mother's stores. I suppose she had come to the 
shanty to do some shopping, for Ranjo sold everything from 
bottled rum to tinned meat. I guessed that her mother 
had sent her off hours before, with those usual strict injunc- 
tions to hurry back home with the soap and the flask of rum. 

Some of those rough shellbacks had known her since she 
could first toddle down to the beach. None were surprised 
to see her at that late hour. She was as wild as Tai-o-hae 
itself to them. She had even gone up into the mountains 
when the shellbacks had bombarded the cannibal chief 
Mopio's stronghold ; yes, when he had captured Ching Chu 
the chinaman and bolted off with him as though he were a 
prize sucking pig. They had found the Chinaman trussed 
like a fowl, the wooden fire blazing, while that half-mad 
cannibal chief, who was the horror of the little native 
children in the villages, was about to club his half -paralysed 
victim. But Uncle Sam had whipped out his revolver and 
blown off the top of the cannibal's head, in the nick of 
time. 

"Hallo, girlie, how goes it ? " "Give us a curl," "Ain't 
she growing, ' ' said the beachcombers. 

67 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Why, Wayee, you're getting quite a woman," said Uncle 
Sam, as he chucked her affectionately under her pretty chin. 

" Give us a dance, there's a good kiddie," said another. 

"What-o!" reiterated the whole crew, as they lifted 
their rum mugs and drank to those innocent-looking eyes. 

Wayee, who had so often entertained those rough men 
by dancing and singing, at first quietly shook her head. 
She gazed at the men with steady eyes. Her picturesquely 
robed figure, her pretty olive-hued face and earnest stare, 
that was imaged in the mirror beside her, reminded one of 
the white girl who had just peeped in like an apparition and 
then vanished. Indeed, meeting Waylao by night in the 
dusk for the first time, one might easily have mistaken her 
for a pure-blooded white girl. She was one of that type of 
half-wild beauty, a beauty that seems to belong to the 
mystery of night and moonlight. All the passionate beauty 
of the Marquesan race and the finer poetic charm of the 
white race seemed to breathe from the depths of her dark, 
unfathomable blue eyes. The curves of the mouth revealed 
a faint touch of sensualism, so faint that it seemed as though 
even the Great Artist had hesitated at that stroke of the 
brush — and then left it there. 

Sometimes her eyes revealed a far-away gleam, like some 
ineffable flush of a dawn that would not break — a half- 
frightened, startled look, as though in the struggle of some 
dual personality a dim consciousness blushed and trembled, 
as though the dark strain and the white strain struggled in 
rivalry and the pagan won. 

" Come on, Wayee," shouted the shellbacks, determined 
to make the girl dance to them. She still hesitated. " Don't 
be bashful, child," said Uncle Sam in his finest parental 
voice. It was then that the new robe of self-consciousness 
fell from the girl. The old child-like look laughed in the eyes. 
In a moment the men had risen en masse and commenced 
to shift the old beef barrels up against the shanty's wooden 
walls, making a cleared space for the prospective performance. 
Looking up into the faces of those big, rough men, Waylao 
was tempted by the pleased looks and flattering glances of 
their strong, manly eyes. As one in a dream she stood 

68 



THE POETRY OF PASSION 

looking about her, for a moment mystified. Then softly 
laying down her little wicker-work basket, she tightened the 
coloured sash bow at her hip. A hush came over the rowdy 
scene and general clamour of the shanty. A dude in the 
next bar, craning his neck over the partition, stared through 
his eyeglass — ^Waylao had lifted her delicate blue robe and 
commenced to dance. 

The regular drinks, getting mixed up with the between 
drinks, had made those old shellbacks violently eloquent. 

" Go it, kiddie ! Kaohau ! Mitia ! " yelled their hoarse 
voices, as they wiped their bearded mouths with their 
hands. Their eyes bulged with pleasure. What had 
happened, they wondered. Her eyes were aglow like stars. 
She commenced to sway rhythmically to Uncle Sam's im- 
promptu on the mouth-organ. O ! O ! hound for Rio Grande 
trembled to the strain of Waylao's tripping feet, as the 
silent hills re-echoed the wild chorus. 

Attracted by those phantom-like echoes, pretty little 
dusky gnomes crept out of the forest, and there, in semi-nude 
chastity, with half-frightened eyes they peeped round the 
rim of the grog shanty door. Then off they bolted, for lo ! 
they suddenly saw their own demon-like faces and curious, 
fierce eyes revealed in the large cracked mirror of that low- 
roofed room. They were native children, truants from the 
village huts close by. 

Suddenly the hoarse bellowings of the beachcombers 
ceased. The big, inflated cheeks of those old yellowing 
shellbacks suddenly subsided, and looking like squashed 
balloons resolved back into wrinkles. Even Uncle Sam 
ceased his unmelodious impetuosissimo on the mouth-organ, 
as he looked at the fairy-like figure that danced before him. 
The superstition, the magic of some old world, some spell 
of the wild poetry of paganism seemed to exist and dance 
before them. Waylao's lips were chanting a weird native 
melody. The atmosphere of that grog shanty was trans- 
muted into the dim light of another age. Those graceful 
limbs and musically moving arms, the poise of the goddess- 
shaped head of that dancing figure, seemed to be some 
materialised expression of poetry in motion. Her face was 

^9 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

set and serious, her eyes strangely earnest looking, yes, 
far beyond her brief years. She seemed to be staring at 
something down the ages. 

The open-mouthed shellbacks sat on their tubs and stared. 
Ranjo stood like a statue in bronze, holding a towel as he 
gazed on the scene. His low bar-room had become im- 
paradised. Instinctively, in the polished utterance of his 
saloon-bar etiquette, he breathed forth : " Ho ! Hi say 1 
'Er heyes shine like a hangel's ! " 

Waylao heard nothing. The low-beamed shanty roof 
and its log walls, with the men enthroned on tiers of tubs 
around her, had crumbled, like the fabric of a dream. A 
magical forest, with wild hills heaved up slowly and grandly 
around her, a world that was brightened by the vaulted 
arch of stars and a dim, far, phantom moonlit sea. Her 
lips were chanting a melody that seemed to bewail some 
long-forgotten memory of love-lit eyes, eyes that gazed 
beneath the unremembered moons of some long-ago 
existence. 

The awakening passion of womanhood had stirred some 
barbarian strain in the girl. It awoke like some fluttering, 
imprisoned swallow that heard the call of the impassioned 
South. It beat its trembling wings in the blood-red heart 
of two races — the dual personality, the daughter of the full- 
blooded Lydia and the blue-eyed sailorman, Benbow. 

The poetic power, the wonderful visualising imagination 
of a dark race, that had peopled their forests with marvel- 
lous pagan deities was awake, revelling in her soul. The 
tropical moonbeams that poured through the grog shanty's 
vine-clad window crept across her dancing eyes and head 
of bronzed curls as she swayed and chanted on. 

"Well, I'm blowed ! if it don't beat all," ejaculated 
the half-mesmerised shellbacks. Waylao's performance had 
created an atmosphere that affected them strangely. " Is 
visions abart," said Grimes in an awestruck voice. 

" My dear Gawd, ain't she bewtifool ! " he murmured to 
himself as he licked his parched lips and called for a " deep- 
sea " beer. 

At the sound of the men's voices the spell was broken. 

70 



GRIMES FALLS IN LOVE 

The half-caste girl abruptly ceased to dance. With the 
sight of reality so grim-loofcing around her, and the dis- 
enchantment of her own senses came a sense of shame. 
For a moment she gazed at the men before her with a 
bewildered stare, then stooped and picked up her little 
basket. 

" Waal, Wayee, I guess I never seed yer dance like that 
'ere afore," said Uncle Sam. 

" Why, blimey, kiddie, if I had yer in London town I*d 
put yer before a top-note audience, and make yer blooming 
fortoone and [sotto voce] me hone fortoon too," said the late 
jockey, Mr Slimes. 

Grimes went to the bar and ordered a glass of the best 
lime-juice ; he handed it to Waylao with a trembling hand. 
His clumsy courtesy was almost pathetic ; his half -opened 
mouth reminded me in some mysterious way of the pathetic 
spout of a tea-pot. The shellbacks winked and nudged each 
other, for the look in Grimes's eyes was unmistakable — he 
had fallen in love. 

Grimes noticed the manner of the men. He returned to 
his tub, and gave them that inimitable, contemptuous 
Cockney side-long glance, which is accompanied by a little 
jerk of the head, that defiance, that imperturbable disdain, 
and the genius required to inflict it upon one whom one may 
hate, which is the sole prerogative of Cockneys. Men of all 
races throughout the world have sought to imitate that 
Cockney glance, but only to end in inevitable, miserable 
failure. 



MARQUBSAN WALTZ. 

Abbandono ed espressivo ^^ 



A. Safroni 
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73 



CHAPTER VII 

Father O'Leary's Confessional Box — Penitent Natives, Chiefs, 
Dethroned Kings and Queens — Waylao goes into the Confes- 
sional Box — Father O'Leary's Philosophy 

THAT dance of Waylao's in the grog shanty created 
a strange impression in my mind. Henceforth 
I looked upon her as some half-wild faery creature 
of the forest. I do not wish to give the impression that 1 
was in love with Waylao. It was only a romantic boy's 
fancy, a clinging to something that faintly resembled his 
immature ideals. I cannot tell the events that followed 
in their exact progression. I recall that about this period 
I started off with Grimes seeing the sights of the isles. I 
could not tolerate sitting in a grog shanty for any length 
of time, though I must admit the tales I heard there and 
much that occurred was deeply interesting to one who wished 
to see more sides of life than one. 

I think Grimes and I were away from Tai-o-hae two or 
three weeks. Things were about the same when we returned. 
The natives were still singing as they toiled on the various 
plantations. A few fresh schooners were in the bay, and 
others loaded and ready to go seaward on their voyages 
to the far-scattered isles of the Pacific. 

My immediate recollections are centred on the occasion 
when, with the help of Grimes, I was building a little outhouse 
for Father O'Leary. It was near his mission-room, which, 
by the way, adjoined his homestead. During the erection 
of this wooden building I became very pally with the priest. 
Up to that period I had looked upon priests as unapproach- 
able mortals who lingered between the border-line of mortality 
and the Promised Land. To my pleasant surprise, I found 
the Father a human being of intellectual calibre. He knew 
the hearts of men and women to an almost infallible degree. 
Nor was this to be wondered at, for his old confessional 

74 



A PRIEST OF GOD 

box had held what strange types of mortals, what strange 
tales of hope and remorse had he heard there ! 

The experiences of his profession seemed to have gifted 
him with second sight and imbued his heart with extreme 
sympathy for erring mankind. Yes, he toiled on in that 
temple of thought, a temple of spiritual faith he had slowly 
built up, as it were, wall by wall, and turret by turret, round 
the sorrow of his mortal dreams. Just think of it — the 
multitudes of disenchanted native children who had crept 
out of the forest depths to fall and confess at his feet ! 
What hearts full of remorse, what benighted lovers, what 
hapless wives, youths, girls with their cherished dreams, 
quaking, had come to him after passion had burnt their 
converted souls ! 

I myself had seen them arrive : dethroned kings and guilty 
queens, aged, tattooed chiefs on tottering feet, shaking with 
fear of the wrath of the great white God, after some wild 
reversion to the heathen orgies in the old amphitheatres 
by the mountains. I had seen the Father put forth his 
hands to hold up the stricken forms as they appeared before 
him — tawny old chiefs swaying like dead men with the terror 
they felt — ere they entered that confessional box. 

For lo ! a native once converted to Christianity takes 
to it seriously, believes implicitly all that he professes to 
believe but cannot adhere to. 

I have seen old chiefs and women, girls too, come out of 
that confessional box as though they had just been given 
everlasting life. The tears all vanished as they leapt off 
into the forest, or stood on their heads with delight just 
behind the mission-room coco-palms. There's no doubt about 
it, but that box was the supreme court of true justice and 
glad truth. In there terrible dramas were unrolled to the 
Father's ears. He was the solitary judge ; nor was he hard in 
the sentences that he meted out to the culprits, for alas ! he 
expiated for all their crimes with prayers from his own soiil. 

But to revert to my experiences. I was digging away at 
post-holes and feeling down in the mouth (for I do not tell 
all my reflections and troubles of those times), when Waylao 
stepped out of the shade of the pomegranates. In a moment 

75 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

I perceived that something was wrong with her. Her eyes 
stared wildly. She did not respond to my cheery salutations 
in her usual way. 

As the Father stepped out of his mission-room she nearly 
fell into his arms. I saw her embrace the old fellow as a 
daughter would a father. " What's the matter, my chUd ? " 
he said, as he noticed her hysterical manner. I threw my 
spade aside. The knowledge that the girl was in trouble 
upset me. I could get no further than wondering at the 
meaning of it all as I heard her weeping violently in that 
silent, sacred wooden enclosure — the confessional box. 

I heard the girl's sighs as she ceased weeping, and the 
Father's solemn voice as he gave advice and absolution. I 
suppose Waylao was a true daughter of Eve, and only told 
the Father half the truth. I know she did not tell all, 
otherwise things would have taken a very different course. 
Though the Father knew it not, Waylao had become the 
wife of a sensualist. 

So much I discovered long after. I did not know then 
how some of the native girls and white girls got married in 
the South Seas. I had heard a good deal of chaff, as I 
thought, about the ways of the Chinese and the Indians, but 
I little dreamed how true it all was. As it turned out, 
Waylao had married an Indian — which means that she had 
gone through a midnight ceremony which was as follows. 
A deluded girl would come under the influence of some 
emigrant hawker from Calcutta, or the Malay Peninsula, 
usually a man with a smile that would have brought a fortune 
to a Lyceum tragedian, for it was the breathing essence of 
limelight sadness and sensual longing. One can imagine 
how such a man would trade on a girl's infatuation. It 
was the custom to lure them into the forest and repeat the 
following wedding service, which is the Mohammedan 
marriage prayer ; — " There is no deity but Mohammed, and 
Mohammed is the one prophet of Allah. I who now kneel 
before thee, O man, renounce the heathen creed called 
Christianity, I, such an one's daughter, by the grace of my 
heart and the testimony of my virtue, give myself up to 
thee body and soul for life and life everlasting." 

76 



A FOLLOWER OF MOHAMMED 

After getting the maid to repeat the foregoing drivel, the 
Mohammedan would murmur mystical Eastern phrases. 
The deluded girl then thought the great romantic hero of 
her life had blessed her with faithful love. Her lips met 
those of the sensualist. The light of fear died away from 
the child-girl's eyes as she clung to her prize. Well might 
Adam and Eve have sighed in their graves ! 

Such was the practice of the followers of Islam in the 
South Seas, and probably closely resembled the marriage 
service that had brought Waylao in fright and remorse to 
Father O'Leary's mission-room. I remember that Waylao 
was considerably cheered up after she had received the 
priest's blessing. 

That same night, as I played the violin and the Father 
accompanied me on the harmonium, she returned and sang 
to us. She seemed to want to haunt the father's presence. 
The old priest was as pleased as I to see her again. She 
had a sweet, tremuJous voice. 

I suppose I was happy that night, for it is all very clear 
to my memory after many years. 

We sat outside beneath the palms. Far away between 
the trunks of the giant bread-fruits we could see the moon- 
light tumbling about on the distant seas. Father O'Leary 
had been speaking of his native land. I was deeply interested, 
and surprised to hear much that he said. It was somehow 
strange to me to find that an old Catholic priest had once 
been a romping, careless boy. 

I cannot tell how the conversation turned to the subject 
of emigrant Indians, but it certainly did do so. Probably 
it was a subject that deeply interested Waylao, 

To the priest's surprise and mine, Waylao looked up into 
the old man's face and said in this wise : 

"Father, why do you call these strange men, who come 
from other lands than your own, infidels ? " 

The old priest was suddenly struck dumb with astonish- 
ment. 

Even I noticed that something had happened that he 
had never expected to hear in his lifetime from that girl's 
lips. For a moment he was silent, like to a man who sees 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

a multitude of meanings behind one remark. His high, 
smooth brow creased into lines of thought. Then he laid 
his hand upon Waylao's shoulder and said, in his rich, kind 
voice, the following : — 

"My child, there are many paths that lead to many 
heavens, for that which is heaven to one man is hell to 
another. But, believe me, there is only one path to the 
reward of righteousness and a clear conscience." 

Waylao, who listened more to the music of that old voice 
than to what it actually said, stood like an obedient child 
as the priest proceeded : 

" Listen, Waylao. Many paths have evil-smeUing flowers 
by the wayside ; some paths have sweet-scented blossoms ; 
and is it not best to follow the sweeter path — to drink the 
pure waters of the singing brook, bathe in the seas of holi- 
ness and avoid those dismal swamps of pestilence where- 
from they who drink shall find only bitterness ? " 

Seeing Waylao's earnest attention, he continued with 
tremulous voice, for he was a religious man and not a bigot : 

" And, my child, if indeed all paths should happen to be 
stumbling-blocks that lead, in the inevitable end, to darkness, 
still, is it not best to go home to God after our travels, full 
of sweetness ? Yes, even though we should go home deluded, 
it shall not be said that we did not do our best. And do 
not old graves look the sweeter for the bright flowers upon 
them, instead of rank, evil-smelling weeds ? " 

" Father, why does God have so many paths and creeds 
that are evil or good ? " said Waylao. 

At hearing her say this, I looked at her. Her face was 
very serious. It seemed Uke some dream to me as the seas 
wailed up the shore and the face of the girl turned with so 
serious a glance up at the priest. Then the Father 
continued : 

"My child, but a Uttle while ago you played in your 
father's house with your many dolls : some had black faces 
with dark eyes, and some pale faces, yet did you not love 
them all, even the ugliest, and love one more than all the 
rest ? Did you question or wonder why there was a differ- 
ence in them, or did those old dolls question you ? " 

78 



THE ONE GREAT PHILOSOPHY 

" Not that I remember, Father," said the girl absently. 

"Just so, then, as we are the children of God, shall we 
question the mysteriousness of His ways ? Oh, my child, 
listen to me. We are the sad poems that the Great Master 
writes on the scroll of Time. We are written for some 
purpose that we know not of. And shall the poems in the 
great Poet's book of Life arise from their pages, inquire and 
demand from whence came their thoughts — or criticise the 
Great Author and His works ? " 

The foregoing is the gist of all that I remember of old 
Father O'Leary's replies to Waylao's strange questions. I 
saw the girl home that night. 



79 



CHAPTER VIII 

Characteristics of Marquesan Natives — Mixed Creeds — Temao and 
Mendos — Queen Vaekehu 

IT may strike one as rather overdrawn that a girl of 
Waylao's age should interrogate a priest, or worry 
about religion at all. But the maids of southern 
climes must not be judged in the same way as the maids of 
our own lands. From infancy a child in the South Seas 
hears wild discussions on creeds. Ere the dummy is cast 
altogether from their lips they see the big, tattooed chief 
pass down the forest track swearing against the fates that 
brought the white man to his demesne. Yes, with his old 
tappa blanket wrapped about him, he shouts and yells his 
defiance to the missionary, or to anyone who would speak 
disparagingly about his race. Half-caste girls and youths 
(children of the settlers) lived in a world of perpetual change. 
For those isles, where I found myself as a boy, were not 
only populated by fearless shellbacks who drifted in on the 
tide. 

Tai-o-hae at that time was surrounded by wild scenery 
and mountain-guarded glooms. Those glooms were haunted 
by handsome, tattooed native men and picturesquely robed 
girls. By night one could hear their songs from afar, 
chants in a strange tongue, as they flitted soft-footed through 
the moonlit forest. 

In cleared spaces of those wild valleys nestled villages 
full of the hubbub of native life. I spent days in those tiny 
pagan cities, and so got a good insight into the native ways. 

Through the influence of emigrant missionaries, their 
argimients, hopes and ambitions seemed to be based on the 
subject of creeds. Natives who one day had embraced 
Catholicism, or Protestantism, or had become sun- 
worshippers, Mormons, Buddhists and Mohammedans, to- 
morrow cast the faith aside and re-embraced some other 

80 




Native tattooed with Armorial Bearings 



A REMNANT OF SOUTH SEA ROME 

creed that appeared to give greater hope of earthly happi- 
ness. These changes were chiefly caused by some apparent 
miracle performed by a native who had gone over to a new 
creed. He would rush into the village and tell the excited 
mob of his success; probably some scheme had met with 
sudden triumph. I myself have heard a native chief shout 
in this wise : 

"What ams ze goods of a creed that promise me heaven 
to-mollow, when me allee samee have heaven to-day ? " 

His prayers had evidently been answered. His neigh- 
bour's chickens were missing, or the adulterously inclined 
wife of the high chief Grimbo had fallen into his arms — at 
last. 

Withal, they were a fine race. I have seen dethroned 
kings and stately, tattooed chiefs stalk into the grog shanties 
for a drink. They still retained something of their erstwhile 
majesty as they flung the coin (just begged from some white 
man) carelessly on the bar. Even the well-seasoned shell- 
backs looked up from their drinks as one old king of other 
days stalked into the white man's gin palace. Their oaths 
were hushed as they saw that handsome, god-like figure 
with the atmosphere of past barbarian splendour wrapped 
about him. About his loins was flung a decorated, tasselled 
loin-cloth. It was drawn down and tied in a bow in true 
native cavalier fashion at one tawny knee. His handsome, 
chestnut-brown physique was artistically tattooed with the 
armorial bearings of his tribe. No laugh or gibe escaped 
the lips of the white men as he stood there, looking scorn- 
fully at them as they sat in rows, and poured the last dregs 
of the fiery rum down his wrinkled throat. Then that 
remnant of the past splendour of the South Sea Rome 
gave us all a glance of defiance and stalked out of the bar 
door, followed by his obsequious retinue — namely, a mangy 
dog, three scraggy (once handsome) women and two nude 
children. To see such fine men and to realise the true 
independence of their natures made me think of the lost 
potentialities of the never-to-be South Sea Empire. What 
would their race have become had their blue sky-lines been 
adamant crystal walls, whereon ships bringing the reformers 
F 8i 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

from civilised lands would have dashed and been smashed 
to atoms ? 

I have often thought what sparkling, terraced cities of 
heathen beauty might not have arisen on those sunny isles, 
enshrined by those horizons of mythological stars that shine 
in the heathen's poetic imagination. 

Yes, they were wonderful lands, more wonderful than 
romance. 

Chiefs would come into the grog shanty and for a drink 
tell one of the most exciting events of Marquesan history. 
True enough, they were wont to exaggerate, but a close 
observer could easily sift the truth from fiction. 

I recall Temao. He was a regular travelling volume of 
Marquesan lore, romance, mythology and breezy barbarian 
crime. 

Temao would stalk into Ranjo's store and entertain Uncle 
Sam, Grimes and all the rest with the history of Marquesan 
royalty for a period of about forty years. As the white 
men filled him with rum, his eyes would flash with grateful 
eloquence, and he would tell such tales that even those 
seasoned shellbacks gasped. 

Much that was told me first-hand of the terrors of those 
heathen times I heard from a white man, one called Mendos, 
an old-time beachcomber. He, I am sure, was one of the 
most wonderful characters that ever roamed those Southern 
Seas. I have heard a lot about Bully Hayes, a South Sea 
character, but to my mind Mendos stood far from the ruck 
of the ordinary type of trader, for such he had been. He 
was well advanced in years and intellectually superior to 
any man I met in those days. From him I heard much 
about Queen Vaekehu. Indeed I believe that he was the 
only white man who had once been the barbarian queen's 
lover. But it's not my intention to dwell here on Mendos 
and his adventures. 

As Queen Vaekehu was one of the most romantic royal 
personages of her time, I feel that it would be interesting 
to give a brief account of her, based on hearsay and also 
my own intimate reminiscences. This I will attempt in 
another chapter. 

82 



CHAPTER IX 

South Sea Helen of Troy — A Barbarian Queen's Lovers — Grimes and 
I pay Obeisance to the Reformed Queen — The Old Heathen 
Amphitheatre and the end of Impassioned Hearts — Descendants 
of Blue Blood — The Calaboose — "Time, Gentleman, please!" 
— A Race that is Dead — Marquesan Mythology — Holy Birds 
of the Gods — Thakombau, the Bluebeard of the South Seas — 
I practise the Cornet in the Mountains to the Delight of the 
Natives — Waylao believes in Fortune-telling 

AT that time Queen Vaekehu was living not far 
from Tai-o-hae. She was known to the French 
officials as "La Grande Chief esse," and I think 
she received a grant from the French Government. She 
lived in a quiet style, but still retained some of the distinc- 
tive elements of past majesty. It was no easy matter to 
get into her presence. I suppose she had been haunted by 
a good many curious tourists, and so felt shy of the white 
men. When one did gain access to her presence, it was 
hard to believe that she had once been the Helen of Troy 
and Cleopatra of the South Seas rolled into one. 

But there she was, no myth ; nor did rumour lie overmuch. 

In the days of her amorous prime and splendid queen- 
ship fleets of canoes had arrived off Tai-o-hae, coming from 
isles a thousand leagues distant, crammed with tattooed 
warriors, headed by some redoubtable Ulysses or Paris, 
whose soul, fired by rumour of the queen's beauty, was 
filled with one intense desire, one wild ambition — to win her 
sparkling glance and impassioned embrace. 

Majestic old chiefs for miles round vied with each other 
in their reminiscences of the time when they successfully 
mounted her throne and were each in turn the envied object 
of the queen's " one " grande passion. 

One knew not how much truth existed in the eloquent 
flow of all that they narrated. No sense of shame possessed 
those tawny warriors as they stood erect, and, with their 

83 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

bronze throats and shoulders thrown back — ^like some Roman 
orator of the Fonmi — completely lost their heads as they 
waxed impassionately eloquent : reclasped in memory 
that queenly form, fell gracefully on one knee, impulsively 
kissed the imaginary queenly hand and vividly described, 
in unguarded detail, those things that made the grog shanty 
re-echo with roars of hysterical laughter — and Mrs Ranjo 
hasten into the saloon bar to blush. 

I have seen the wife of an old chief press her beloved's 
hand with the pride and admiration she felt as he told of 
his amorous youth, of that day when he, too, had mounted 
that throne in the glorious pride of conquest ; telling her of 
incidents which one would have thought would have made 
her want to shoot him at sight, instead of listening with 
pride. 

An unforgettable privilege was mine. I performed violin 
solos before Queen Vaekehu on the celebration of her birth- 
day, and was greatly impressed by the demure demeanour 
of the great ex-savage queen, after all that I had heard. I 
quite expected to see some eagle-eyed, bronzed. Elizabethan- 
like queen, something that at least hinted of those mighty, 
amorous times, those terrific cannibalistic and heathen orgies 
at the Marea ^Temples and arenas of death. Those surround- 
ing hills had echoed and re-echoed the booming calls of the 
death-drums as they beat the sunset down and the stars in — 
and the last hour of what anguish-stricken maid or youth, 
the prison-bound victims who were doomed to that last 
dubious honour of being clubbed on the altar of the sacri- 
ficial rites ! Much of the first-hand terrors of those heathen 
times I have given in full detail in my reminiscences of the 
old-time beachcomber, Mendos, the most wonderful character, 
surely, who ever roamed those Southern Seas. 

To see that majestic relic of royalty pirouette daintily, 
on tripping feet, to the Parisian waltz made it hard to 
believe that she had been such an exciting character in her 
golden days. " Queen Bess of the South," she was called by 
the French. There was a brooding expression on her oval- 
shaped face. Her eyes were piercing, yet at times softened, 
and looked earnest and reflective. Even in age the lips 

84 



A COCKNEY AT COURT 

retained their somewhat sensual curves. The beautiful 
tattoo revealed on her wrists, below the sleeves of her modern 
attire, and just peeping up beneath the tawny-hued throat's 
fulness, was all that remained visible to the sight of men 
of her past abandonment, of her renowned tattooed beauty, 
and of the impassioned moonlit nights of long ago. 

Bill Grimes accompanied me on that royal visit. It was 
he who played the banjo that called forth such praise from 
those long since deserted lips. As Grimes played, her eyes lit 
up — with what memories ! — as the pink-er-te-ponk I-ponk U 
tromrrrrrrrrp ! er te- trrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrph ! of the Western 
world's festival sounds reminded her of what dim echoes 
coming across the years, the death-drums, beating, beating 
below the ranges of heathen-land ! When Grimes called her 
" Your Majesty " (only English term of great deference that 
she seemed to know) her eyes revealed a glimmer of the old 
pride of praise that she had once revelled in. But, some- 
how, the first faint smile that flitted across her wrinkled, 
bronzed face gave her a child-like expression. One seemed 
to see the savage baby peeping through her brown eyes. 

Her pride was intensified by my own courtly act in kissing 
her hand in the Sir Walter Raleigh style. I believe Grimes 
would have thrown his remnant of the coat he always 
slept in down in the dust for her to tread upon, so awestruck 
was he in her presence, and by the servile munificence of her 
decayed retinue. Poor Grimes ! I felt a strange tenderness 
for him, so clumsily did he imitate my courtly act, as he, 
too, bent his knee, wiped the tobacco juice from his scrubby 
lips, and saluted the royal hand with a kiss. 

He blushed like a kiddie when Vaekehu fastened an acacia 
blossom on the breast of his ragged coat, and said, in pidgin- 
English : 

"Arise, thou art great chief, Monseigneur Grimes, as 
one can so easily observe." She bowed in picturesque 
Marquesan style to Grimes. He tried to mimic that in- 
imitable grace ; his knees seemed to stagger and crack, and a 
world of woe weigh down his shoulders. 

" Good-bye, Mitia ! Papalagi ! Anglisman ! Kaoha ! " she 
murmured. 

85 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Alower ! " said Grimes huskily, breathing forth his one 
Marquesan word in Cockneyesque style — " Alower I " 

Not far from that residence were the ruins of the old 
heathen amphitheatre, the once dreadful tapu arena. It 
was on that spot that Vaekehu's cast-off lovers paid their 
last enforced obsequies to their royal mistress, and were 
served up, spiced and hot-blooded, from the ovens as tempting 
joints for the great cannibal festival. 

Many a trustful, impassioned heart that had once beat 
violently at her beauty and her musical Marquesan vows 
had steamed on the dreadful cannibal dish, a morsel for her 
eyes, and a tempting sight for the jealous, hungry, new 
paramour. 

Such was her past : and there she sat, a demure, nice old 
lady, looking through her pince-nez, her wrinkled face a 
veritable manuscript, an outlined map of the purest thought, 
the sweetest of lives, as she licked her tattooed thumb and 
turned the leaves of her Bible. 

Vaekehu was not the only royal relic of a glorious past. 
For there were many royal-blooded chiefs staying at the 
Government institution, called the calaboose (jail). 

Thither they retired when decrepitude brought their 
passions to a smouldering state. The French officials had 
considerable trouble with those native princes, chiefesses, 
dethroned tribal kings and sad, forgotten queens, who 
looked upon that prison, with its regular meals, as a godsend 
to old age. Indeed it required the sternest vigilance of the 
gendarmes to keep those who had been released from escap- 
ing back to the prison precincts ! Cast forth upon their 
ravaged dominions once more, they would yell forth pleading 
from sunset till dawn, swearing that some mistake had been 
made in the date of their release : the day, the month, or 
the year had been grossly miscalculated ! 

It was pathetic to listen to those royal personages as they 
rushed from the gates of the jail stockade, when one passed, 
and started eloquently to shout forth their line of pedigree : 
how they were each in turn the true decendants of South Sea 
blue blood, true children of those who had once reigned, and 
who in their turn were descendants of barbarian kings from 

86 



THE HOSPITABLE SOUTH SEAS 

time immemorial. Nor were they to be blamed or laughed 
at, since, having no Who's Who or Peerage to tell their 
greatness, no literature of note to hint of their glorious past, 
it was absolutely enforced upon those sad old convicts to 
perpetuate their line by word of mouth from decade to 
decade. So did men distinguish their origin in the South 
Seas, preserve the glory of the past and gain respect from 
those around them. 

Once more out on the world's mercy, released, in tears, 
those old relics of a resplendent barbaric age roamed from 
grog shanty to grog shanty. In those walls of the white man 
they could lay their weary heads from dawn to dawn. The 
dreadful Fate-like call of, '*Time, Gentleman, please 1 " 
was never heard in those hospitable parts ; in fact it was 
the reverse, for did a man pass a grog shanty door without 
having a friendly drink after midnight he was in danger 
of being " chucked in " rather than out. 

It is curious how in various parts of the world the con- 
ditions of life are turned upside down. My remembrance 
of Nuka Hiva is as of some glorious reversion of mundane 
existence tinged with the poetic. 

Once again in a dream I stand by those palm-clad, romantic 
mountains, like sentinels guarding an enchanted land 
against the perilous faery seas. The wonderful shores of 
Nuka Hiva are sharply outlined in my memory, lulled by 
the echoing monotone of the ocean. The winds are all 
asleep. Even my old schooner the Molyhawk, whose every 
board and bunk I know, looks mireal, like some painted ship 
on a painted moonlit tropical lagoon. The half-reefed, 
hanging canvas sails seem the tired wings of Silence itself ; 
they look unreal, as though fixed — a mirage hanging between 
the crystalline, moonlit sky and sea. 

Only the creeping shadows, belated natives by the shore 
banyans, give a touch of reality that is somehow stranger 
than the dream. 

Like the last of the Mohicans abroad again, a canoe steals 
across the still lagoon of long ago, crammed with handsome, 
dusky, tattooed chiefs. They wail a plaintive paddle song, 
a " himee." They are the last of their race. 

87 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Again I wander like a ghost that cannot sleep. So linked 
with romantic sounds of song and mythology is the primeval 
scenery that the very air seems to smell of scented myrrh, 
sandalwood and ancient life of deep, mysterious, poetic 
import. I half fancy I hear the hubbub of some ancient 
Assyrian city's life floating across the silent, sleeping 
hills between me and the dark ages. Then I hear the faint 
boom of drums and realise that the soft-footed natives are 
speeding along the track that leads to the bustling village 
below the mountains. 

I stare seaward. Was that really a tiny, curling wave 
breaking on some hidden reef afar, or the skeleton of some 
dead, home-sick sailor tossing his white arms for a second as 
the home-bound sailing ship goes away, out with the tide, 
ere he sinks once again into the depths. It is only a wave 
tossing its brief hand to the hidden corals, thank God ! 
I will not think rest is denied the dead ; but at times the 
brain has strange fancies. Perhaps I have listened too 
much to the legendary song and lore of those Marquesans, 
who seem ever haunted by death ; those stalwart, tattooed 
men who see some symbol of the supernatural in all around 
them. No cloud flies beneath the stars without bringing 
some fearful portent. Its ragged shadows jumping across 
the moonlit sea are the vast hordes of evil gods after the soul 
of some late departed. The breath of the mighty god 
Oro blows through the mountain bread-fruits, ever calling 
the last of his heathen children to shadow-land. They are 
frightened of his big, blowing voice in the ranges ; for have 
they not deserted him and bent on their sinful knees to the 
white man's God ? 

No night-bird cries in the forest but it has come from 
shadow-land to warn the sick chief, or guilty one, that the 
hour is near, and the gods have observed. The pretty 
Marquesan maid Talasenga trembles with fright as she 
sits in the leafy glooms of the forest and hears that twittering 
while she dreams those things that a maid should never 
dream. She looks up with fright. She cries, " Awaie ! 
Awaie ! " as there they sit, four goddesses with their fingers 
at their lips, their small eyes bright with discovery. They 



THE FIRST WONDERFUL BIBLE 

have been watching from the boughs overhead, those four 
little O le manu-ao birds, winged messengers from that master- 
of -all-gods, Tangaloa of Polotu (Elysium). They still wear 
their blue and crimson feathered tapu robes as they write 
down, on the hastily plucked bread-fruit leaf, the terrible 
truth, all that they have read, by magic, in the girl's soul as 
she sat below that treacherous tree thinking that she was 
unobserved. Away they fly to shadow-land to tell the gods ! 
Away I to the great Tangaloi with that indictment safely 
fastened beneath their wings. Poor Talasenga, it is indeed 
terrible 1 

It was a magical world, crammed with wonder and goodness. 
A little bird inspiring a girl's soul with faith ; and lo ! she 
has strangled her wicked thoughts with the flight of those 
disguised, swift-winged goddesses, those goddesses of a creed 
which had a more salutary effect on those wild Marquesan 
people than all the denominations of the civilised world put 
together. 

The missionaries had a hard task to wrench their deep 
faith in that glorious, poetic superstition from the native 
heart. The wonderful heathen atmosphere would cling like 
distilled moonlight to their mystery-loving brains. That 
tiny, grey. Catholic, wooden abbey, with its little steeple and 
the Virgin's figure peeping from the South Sea chestnuts, 
often peeped in vain. It could not dispel the wonders of 
the great tikis (wooden gods) which stood in the depths of 
their forest colonnades — supreme, upright, ever watching, 
ever smiling with that Fate-like grin on the wooden slit- 
mouth, as their bulging pearl-white eyes stared on through 
the ages. 

Waylao was reared up in such an atmosphere ; her brain 
was a veritable mythological bible of heathen magic and its 
wonderful goddesses and gods. She told me many things 
about mythology, for from her earliest childhood she had 
listened to her mother's tales. Indeed I heard a good many 
strange tales from old Lydia herself. Sometimes when I 
had little to do I would go up to her cottage and, smoking 
my pipe, listen to the native woman's yams. Though the 
old woman looked a full-blooded Marquesan, she declared 

89 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

that she was a descendant of that South Sea Bluebeard, 
Thakombau, the last of the Fijian kings. 

No one who faced Lydia ever left her presence without 
hearing such exclamations as: "Me! the descendants of 
great kinks [kings] stand 'ere before yous ! " 

Here she would strike her bosom and, assuming a majestic 
pose, roll the whites of her eyes and shout : " Me ! tink 
of it, 'aves to feed chickens and work wiles that lazy hussies 
Wayee sleeps in bed, wears flowers in hair, and tink she 
beautiful white womans." 

Here she would purse her big mouth out with rage, roll 
her eyes and roar : " Wayee ! Wayee ! you tink you white 
womans. You tink you great lady, better than your old 
mother. Go you at once and get white mans one dozen 
eggs from chicken-'ouse." 

Waylao had so often listened to the old woman's garrulous 
descriptions of the palatial splendour of Fiji, those ancestral 
halls wherein her rumoured relatives lolled in royal comfort 
by the Rewa river, that she often looked with longing for 
the day when she might go to Fiji. She did go some months 
after, but it was on a quest that she had not anticipated in 
her wildest imaginings. 

I. will now revert to my immediate doings at that time. 
I had been away with Grimes to Hivaoa. I had secured 
several musical engagements among the French residents 
who lived on the coast. When we returned to Tai-o-hae 
we were both once more warmly welcomed by the rough men 
of the shanty. I was always welcomed there because of my 
violin. Indeed I had formed a scratch orchestra from the 
members of that wild crew. This musical gathering was 
composed of two banjos, two mouth-organs, piccolo, flute 
and clappers, with now and then a jews' harp thrown in. 
One can imagine that it was not suitable for rendering artistic 
selections from the works of the great masters. Still, the 
combination answered our purpose, for it made the shell- 
backs happy. 

About this period a French official presented me with a 
comet, and I at once started to practise it in the shanty. 
For a while the brave shellbacks tolerated my^ thrilling 

90 



I SOOTHE THE SAVAGE BREAST 

endeavours on that cracked instrument. Then they rose 
en masse and threatened to take my Ufe. After that I 
went into the mountains to practise. The echoes would fly 
across the ranges, and scare the parrots and the natives in the 
villages just below. I became an imparadised being in the 
eyes of some of the old-time Marquesan chiefs through that 
comet. They would creep up the slopes as I blasted forth 
the shrill notes, then go on their knees before me and beg 
for one blow. I do not exaggerate, but I achieved more fame 
as a musician through that old comet and my endeavours 
to master it than ever I did from my violin performances. 
Some of the natives fairly worshipped me. I only had to go 
up into the hUls and peal forth the scales to cause a general 
hubbub amongst the natives on the plantations. Indeed 
the white overseer came up to my secluded mountain studio 
and said : " Look you here, young feller, if you blow that 

b thing off in this 'ere group, I'll have you shot, or 

ejected from the isles altogether." 

" Surely I can play the cornet out here in the South 
Seas," said I. 

" God damn it ! " he responded, as his red beard 
shook with emotion. "The natives on my plantation 

stop work, dance, go mad and become b heathens for 

four hours every morning whUe you practise that darned 
thing." 

At hearing the result of my aspirations to become a great 
comet player, I apologised, and had to relinquish my practice 
for a time. My advice to aspirants for fame on the cornet 
is to keep in the cities, for there is not privacy enough in the 
solitudes of the South Seas for comet practising. But to 
return to my scratch orchestra. 

One night we were all playing in full swing in the shanty, 
making a terrible row, when Waylao came in, as she often 
did. When the overture to the fourteenth mug of rum was 
finished, Grimes and I too stopped for refreshments. 

" My word, don't she look bewtiful ! " whispered Grimes 
as he spotted Waylao. 

The girl was talking to Mrs Ranjo, who was telling her 
fortune. 

91 



WINE-DARK SIPAS 

Grimes blushed to his big ears when Waylao turned and 
gazed steadily at him for a moment. He started to tune his 
old banjo up, so as to hide that boyish flush. For a while 
we sat there in silence, as the girl listened eagerly to Mrs 
Ranjo's prophecies. That half-Spanish woman was an 
adept at palmistry. She had already told Grimes's fortune 
and mine, and though I was extremely incredulous, even 
I had a great deal of pleasure out of the experience. 

I watched Waylao as the woman held her hand and scanned 
the lines. It was easy enough to see that the girl believed 
implicitly all that the woman said. Nor was there anything 
wonderful in her doing so, when one thinks of the thousands 
of well-educated women in the civilised cities who visit the 
crystal-gazers. 

I tell of this little incident in the shanty because it 
led up to something that was extremely weird and im- 
pressive, a scene that Grimes and I witnessed quite by 
accident in the forest next day. 

First, I must say that as we listened to Mrs Ranjo's 
prophecies we overheard the woman tell Waylao of one 
named Rimbo. Now Rimbo was a great, well-known 
Marquesan prophet. It appeared that he lived in a hut at 
a solitary spot just round the coast. For a long while 
Mrs Ranjo expatiated on the virtues of Rimbo's prophecies 
— how they always came true. It was easy enough to see 
that Waylao was deeply impressed. At the time I wondered 
myself why one fortune-teller should so applaud the virtues 
of another. It turned out that there was reason enough 
for this kindliness to a rival, as the reader will see in the 
next chapter. 



92 



CHAPTER X 

The Half-caste Girl visits Rimbo the Priest — Idols of the Forest — 
Waylao's Flight — Grimes and I catch Rimbo — Rimbo's Hut 
and Stores — Rimbo's Hoarded Bribes — Legendary Belief — 
Remarks 

IT SO happened that the following day Grimes and I 
went off fishing in the lagoons round the coast. 
I knew it not at the time, but as we fished we were 
in close proximity to Rimbo's hut. In this hut the heathen 
priest lived all alone, dreaming and cursing the memory of 
the white men who had blasted his lucrative profession and 
smashed up his best tikis (idols). 

As I was sitting on the reefs, smoking and fishing, my 
comrade suddenly looked up and said : " Why, pal, there's 
Wayler ! " 

In a moment we were all attention, for the girl was coming 
down into the hollows that intervened between the shore 
and the vast forest of bread-fruits. She was on her way to 
visit the fortune-teller Rimbo's hut. 

As we watched, she stealthily glanced around ere she 
went along the track that led to the hidden den where so 
many native girls entered to know if their Don Juans were 
faithful to them. 

For a while I will take the reader along with Waylao. 

In a few moments she had passed into the thick glooms 
of the tropical forest. It was a strangely impressive sight 
to see the half-caste girl creeping through those wooded 
depths. She seemed some faery creature as she dodged 
between the big tree trunks, her blue kimono robe and sash 
fluttering as warm winds swept in from the sea. Nor was 
the enchantment of the scene lessened when she arrived 
outside the half-hidden hut home of the heathen wizard. 
She peered about her as though with fright, then gave a 
" Tap I Tap ! " on the closed door. 

93 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

A windy voice broke the silence : " Tarona Awaie ? " 
("Well, little one?"). 

It was the voice of Rimbo. Then the door opened a 
little wider and the old heathen's head protruded. It were 
impossible to imagine such a weird physiognomy as he 
possessed. I recall nothing in the world's museums, anthro- 
pological collections of mummified priests, saints, devils or 
dead kings to be compared with my vivid memory of that 
heathen man. He really looked that which he professed 
to be — the personification of mythology, its bigotry, mystery 
and sins. He had been handsome once, in the cannibalistic 
days — so much could be seen at a glance — ^but it was a faint, 
far-off tale. 

As he opened that little door and peered forth, his tawny, 
wrinkled face looked like some tattered map of thwarted 
human schemes. 

Waylao trembled before him. From far came the muffled 
sounds of tribal drums beating the sunset down. Overhead 
the twilight nightingale (0 le manu-ao) commenced to pour 
forth his silvery evening song. To Waylao's superstitious 
soul it was no melodious bird welcoming her to Rimbo 's 
enchanted abode, but a good omen, that bird's song, as it 
sat somewhere up in the banyans. It sang of old memories, 
of its long ago dead girl-lover and cherished vows, ere some 
vengeful god or goddess had touched the brave chief's 
brow and turned him into a sad, twilight-singing nightingale. 
Why, the forest itself was a world of mythological wonder : 
the giant bread-fruit trees were the mighty brooding bodies 
of long dead, bronzed warriors, their shaggy heads bursting 
forth into gnarled boughs whereon, as the summers passed, 
hung their dead aspirations — in golden fruits. 

On wild nights when the typhoons blew the great gods 
and goddesses, Tano, Pulutu, Oro, Tangaloa, would wail 
through that forest from the halls of Polotu. 

The enchanted seas rolled by that forest — seas where the 
golden sunsets sank, to be caught by the hands of the sea- 
gods and fashioned into mighty nets to catch the heathen 
souls of the day's dead. For under those dark waters of 
the Pacific slept the old-time chiefs and chicif esses curled 

94 



AT MYTHOLOGY'S ALTAR 

up in the old, broken moons — their coffins — or entangled 
in the long dead sunsets as they awaited the heathen god's 
trump of doom. It was a wondrous creed of poetic lore, 
writ on a bible whose pages held the faded simsets and a 
million moons and stars ; pages wherefrom old Rimbo 
drank the very breath of his existence. 

" What you wants ? " said that old heathen as hs stared 
at Waylao, who stood before him holding in one hand the 
bag of goods she had purchased for her mother at Ran jo's 
stores. 

He looked with astonishment on the pale-faced girl. He 
pulled his shoulders up majestically. The old wretch was 
evidently flattered at receiving so fair a client. His wrinkled 
brow smoothed out. " You Cliston girls ? " he wailed, as 
the map of wrinkles suddenly returned and extended right up 
towards the northern territory of his domed head. 

"No, great chief Rimbo," responded Waylao, realising 
the full meaning of the old chief's suspicions. Once more 
the old priest peered over the girl's shoulders into the deep 
shadows of the forest. Satisfied that the visit was no trick, 
no attempt to find out, spy and betray the whereabouts of 
his wooden idols, he looked steadily at the girl and said : 
" You wanter fortune tole ? " 

Waylao nodded her head. 

"Tome! follows you me," said that witcbman, as he 
stalked on in front and beckoned the trembling maid to 
follow. 

" Yous quite sures the grog lady, kinds papalagi, sends 
yous to great chief Rimbo ? " he murmured once again, as 
he suddenly stood still and looked about suspiciously. 

Being once more assured that Waylao had been sent by 
the artful old Mrs Ranjo, off he tottered again. 

Suddenly he paused and said : " You never tells white 
peoples that Rimbo got great tild [idol] if I take you to it ? " 

" Oh, priest, I promise to never say one word to a living 
soul," said Waylao earnestly, with a look in her eyes that 
convinced the old tattooed witchman that she had no 
thought of betraying him to the missionaries. 

In a moment he stooped and divided the thickets of 

95 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

dwarf bamboos and squeezed through a kind of stockade. 
Waylao followed, her heart thumping with the mystery and 
wonder of it all. 

As they both emerged into the cleared space of that arena 
of idol worship, the girl looked about with awestruck eyes. 
There it stood, six feet ten inches in height, broad-shouldered, 
and hideous enough to express the hopes of dead and living 
men, its gigantic, one-toothed wooden mouth agape with 
laughter. It was a wonderful sight. The mystery of life 
and death seemed to hang about that mighty cathedral of 
the ages, a cathedral supported by colonnades of giant 
bread-fruit trees towering majestically to the great crystal 
dome of eternity. As Rimbo prostrated himself before 
that graven deity, Waylao stood in the hush that pervaded 
the dim light. She looked as though she was petrified with 
fright. She might have been the emblematical figure of 
some frightened angel in mortal realms. But her eyes were 
alive with terror, and no insensate figure ever had such a 
glorious crown of hair falling over the brow of so fair a face. 

Night was fast approaching. A little wind crept down 
those mighty heathen halls, stirring, uplifting the wide 
carpet pattern of exotic flowers. The vaulted dome of 
eternity was faintly darkened, ready to receive the first 
etherealised impression of the stars. 

It was wonderful how much of the wild mystery of those 
hushed temple halls was visible in the dim, magical light 
of the dying day. From the roof tropical festoons of 
Nature's wonderful handiwork hung in the perfect stillness 
of brooding silence. The bent, gnarled columns of that 
solemn edifice looked like massive, twisted lava-stone and 
broken marble, as though some cataclysm of volcanic passion 
had passed that way, leaving mighty architectural ruins 
that had mysteriously burst into leaf. A few small images 
were half hidden in the green bowers of those elevated 
branches. In the dim light it seemed as though small 
goddesses, emblematical figures, holding in their unseen 
hands twining red and blue vine-flowers, had hastily climbed 
those gnarled columns and clung there, midway up, staring 
down in sculptured silence. 

96 



CONFIDENCE TRICK 

Far away through the shoreward columns of those 
primeval halls glimmered God's old mythological stained- 
glass window — the dying day — the emblazoned hopes, the 
legendary beauty and faith of paganistic dreams, past 
and future, ebbing like a tide. Nothing in Nature's trans- 
cendent art could outvie the beauty of those glimmering, 
ineffable, faint, greenish and vermilion dyes, that like unto 
Scriptural daubs blushed between miles of leaden stained 
lines of that remote window — sunset on the Western Seas. 

Only a faint tinge of the day's death-blood struck the 
dim light of that heathen temple. With staring, awestruck 
eyes, Waylao crept up those mossy aisles and knelt before 
that altar with her hands lifted in appeal to that hideous 
effigy. Its enormous, bulging glass eyes seemed to stare 
sidelong at the western glory, ever watching, ever listening 
with alert, unwearied, deaf wooden ears. Waylao looked 
like some cursed, pleading fallen angel at the feet of Hate, 
as she knelt there, the faded flowers in her bronzed hair, 
the Islamic carpet bag's pink and blue ribbon fluttering at 
her throat, as the incense from decaying tropical flowers came 
creeping through the moistened glooms. Not the faintest 
semblance of her dark lineage was visible in that hushed, 
dim light as she lifted her face. She appeared some beautiful 
white girl, it might have been Pauline herself, kneeling there 
in heathen prayer at those monstrous wooden feet. While 
the half-demented girl repeated the heathenish phrases that 
Rimbo uttered as he stood by the idol in the shadows, it 
suddenly seemed that those awful glass eyes moved ! It 
seemed that they stared half in wonder on this new, beautiful 
white worshipper. Suddenly out of the huge, grinning, one- 
black- toothed mouth flew a disturbed little bird ! It gave 
a tiny wail : " Wailo, tu-loo ! Wailo, to-loo ! " as it fluttered 
away, low down, into the forest shadows. 

Full of faith, the superstitious girl was chanting some song 
of Rimbo 's wretched -belief when, lo ! that monstrous, 
wooden-lipped, tongueless mouth spoke ! A hollow, windy 
voice said : 

" O beautiful white womans, Mitia Kaloah ! You belief 
in good old heathen tiki-priest Rimbo ? He good chiefs, 
G 97 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

able to bless yous with love, allee samee, though he no 
Clistian priest. If you no belief in great Rimbo and tells 
papalagi [white men] where I, the great god Pulutu, am 
standing, hid in forest, yous life be cursed for evers and 
evers ! " 

After a pause, in which the girl-child looked up at the 
hideous idol like one staring in a trance, the hollow-sounding 
voice continued : 

" O answers me ! Do you believes ? Will you tell 
misslennaries [missionaries] that Pulutu stand by the sea 
at Temarorio ? Will you get poor old priest Rimbo, who 
am great tapu mans, shut up in calaboose ? " 

"O great Pulutu of the forest, god of the great chief 
Rimbo, I promise you that none shall know that you are 
here by the sea at Temarorio," said Waylao. Then she 
quickly continued : " But will you tell me all that I must 
know ? Is it best that I should desert those who have loved 
me from childhood ? " 

Spake the idol : " O beautiful Marama, let the great 
Rimbo kiss you lips three times, and do tings he wish to do ; 
then you become tapu. So will you prayers be answered. 
But first you must go to Misser Ranjo's store and get for 
great god Pulutu two large bottles of the zottest te-rom 
[rum], one bottle of perandi [brandy] twos tins of 'densed 
milk, one poun tabak [tobacco], and two green eyes and nice 
paint." 1 

Waylao was dumbstruck with astonishment, notwith- 
standing her superstitious belief, to hear an idol should 
want rum and unrecorded things. 

Something in her manner must have been observed by 
that heathen deity, something showing that his demands 
were unwisely put. 

"O maids that kneels in prayer to me, turn thy head, 
lookes behind you so that you may be still blessed with 
great faith in great Rimbo." 

Waylao at this turned her head and looked over her 
shoulder, but, turning back too quickly, observed old priest 

^ Ranjo sold glass eyes and paint to the heathen natives, who had 
old idols hidden in the forest waiting to be renovated. 

98 



WAYLAO DISILLUSIONED 

Rimbo sneaking out of that decayed, ant-infested hollow 
inside of the huge idol wherein he had hidden ! 

In a flash Waylao saw through the deception. Rimbo 
in turn perceived that the girl had discovered his duplicity. 
The trick was quite obvious for, as he jumped, the tassels 
of his lava-lava caught in a splinter that existed on that 
wooden deity's anatomy. His tawny brow creased into a 
mass of wrinkles that went right up to the dome of his bald 
head. 

Perceiving the look of fright and intense realisation on the 
girl's face, his deified majesty fell from him. The shock he 
received was evident. He had lost all hope of receiving 
his bribe of rum. Mrs Ranjo would heap curses on his 
sinful head ; call him an ass ; she would think he had betrayed 
her. He would lose the commission that he always received 
from his multitudes of confessional clients, bribes secured 
from the superstitious children of the forest, old-time chiefs, 
aged women, love-sick girls and aspiring youths who crept 
with hopes and aspirations to that heathen confessional 
box, that had been doomed as illegal by the French officials. 
The evil fate that eventually befell Rimbo was undeserved.^ 
Indeed his guilt in nowise could be compared to that of the 
heathen crystal-gazers and mercenary quacks of the civilised 
cities. A sense of shame came to Waylao. In a moment 
she had realised the madness of her superstition. 

With a cry of despair she rose to her feet, looked for a 
second into Rimbo 's fierce eyes, then, clutching her mother's 
soap, fled away into the forest ! 

" Gawd blimy ! if that don't beat the band ! — a bewtiful 
gal like that 'ere too." Simultaneously with this ejacula- 
tion a coco-nut caught the old heathen priest crash on the 
hindpart ! 

^ Rimbo was eventually caught red-handed by the gendarmes. 
His idols were destroyed, and he was imprisoned in the calaboose. 
His captors found half-a-ton of Oriental silks, tappa cloth, muskets, 
old coins, cloths and Waterbury watches in his hut, besides many 
bottles of various spirits and tinned foods. It was hinted that he 
had a hiding-place elsewhere. He was eventually shot, whilst 
attempting to escape from the calaboose, by a gendarme. 

99 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

He had started after Waylao in full pursuit. No doubt 
he was terror-stricken at the thought that the girl might 
seek the missionaries and the local white men and tell 
them of his idols and his duplicity. 

As the coco-nut struck the old chap, his long legs seemed 
to suddenly leap skyward. Down he came, smash into the 
deep, ferny-flowered carpet of the forest floor. It was then 
that Grimes and I stole out of the shadows behind the 
buttressed banyans. We had been unseen witnesses of the 
whole business. 

For a moment the old priest stared at us as though his 
last hour had come. I felt sorry. We swiftly reassured him 
that no further harm would come to him from us. Indeed 
we were both intensely curious to speak to the old fellow. 
It was something new to our experience. With the swift 
instinct of his race he saw that our attitude was not hostile, 
and his manner became chUd-like as he endeavoured to 
please us. I pretended that we had only that moment 
come on the scene, and he seemed much relieved at this 
information. For a while he tried to explain to us that 
the old wooden effigy we were staring at had been mysteri- 
ously placed there by some enemy who wished to get him 
into trouble with the French officials. 

Grimes and I assured him that whoever had done so 
dastardly a trick deserved condign punishment. 

The Marquesans are like children and, strange as it may 
seem, the old prophet felt that he had convinced us of his 
innocence. Had he seen the Cockney wink that Grimes 
gave me, I am sure that he would not have given us his 
confidence as he did. He took us into his hut, quite a 
spacious dwelling, crammed with piles of tinned meat, 
bottles of oil, old knives, razors, springless clocks and cases 
of bottles of spirit, etc. This hoard was no doubt part of 
the spoil, the fee that he demanded from his credulous clients 
— superstitious native girls, youths, and even white men at 
times ! 

The weather was extremely hot, so we accepted the bribe 
that he offered when he once more became suspicious, 
a bottle of something that tasted like the best champagne. 

100 



GREAT HEATHEN MARTYRS 

Grimes nudged him in the ribs, winked and said something 
Hke this : " Don't you worry, old cock ; I ain't a-going 
to give yer away." Then he did a double shuffle, which 
delighted the Marquesan. 

Whenever Grimes, after that, was hard up for a drink, 
he sneaked away into the forest to see old Rimbo, where he 
renewed his protestations of secrecy as to the heathen's 
misdeeds and drank away to his heart's content. 

Beneath Rimbo's sly commercial propensities he nourished 
a deep belief in the virtues of the heathen gods, as I dis- 
covered in the few conversations which I had with him after 
the aforesaid experience. He swore to me that he saw the 
old gods stalking through the forest on moonlit nights. 
" You no believe me ? " he responded to my remarks and 
sceptical glance. " AUee samee, I see them go across 
forest, climb down the stars, down into the big moana ali " 
(ocean). 

"Rimbo, I believe you," said I, as Grimes nudged him 
in the ribs, saying : 

"This ain't 'alf good stuff," then took another drink 
from Rimbo's hoarded store. 

It was a pleasure to encourage Rimbo to tell the wonders 
of his weird belief. And why shouldn't one encourage him ? 
Think of the thousands of people in civilised lands who 
believe implicitly in spiritualism and crystal-gazing. The 
poetic legends and creeds of the natives had their virtuous 
side. It is true enough that many of their songs were based on 
cannibalism and idol-worship, but more often they sang the 
praise of warrior deeds that had brought some cruel enemy 
to the dust. The old heathen bible had much inherent 
beauty in its primitive psalms, far more than has ever been 
intimated by early travellers. The sacrificial altar and 
cannibalistic horrors were much the same, and nearly as 
wicked, as the deeds of the stake-burning era of Christianity 
in civilised lands. Also, the savages were sincere in their 
beliefs, a fact that is proved conclusively by the noble 
stoicism of their now historical martyrs, who died merci- 
fully by one blow of the war-club, whereas British chapel- 
goers of our dark ages hired orchestral stalls and cheered 

lOI 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

whilst the martyr died a lingering death. Their creed 
was a primitive Buddhism, preaching reincarnation and a 
divine reverence for all living things. The birds, the trees, 
the fish of the sea, the winds and clouds were transformed 
beings, the shadows and poetic voices of dead warriors beyond 
the grave. Indeed their apparently blood-thirsty religion 
possessed an inherent gospel of tenderness : all creeping and 
living things forming a sympathetic part of a mythology 
that was based on a mystic reverence for nature and the 
beautiful, a reverence that has never had a dominating sway 
in the religions of the Western world. A dash of Marquesan 
heathenism, as it once was, thrown into the stock-pot of 
modern Christianity would, I am sure, vastly improve the 
bigoted, outrageous godless moan that attempts to dominate 
human wishes and joys to-day. 

As for Rimbo, I'd as soon enter heaven arm-in-arm with 
him as with any saintly bishop or pope ever born. 

I see by my diary notes that even in those days I was un- 
conventional in my religious views. One entry, 21st October, 
goes : 

"Had great argument with thich-necked, low man about 

religion. He called me b fool and crimson and purple 

idiot, etc., etc. He's a coal- trimmer from the Alandine, 
a Yankee tramp steamer that called yesterday from Hivaoa. 
I told him he was an arrant coward, and swashbuckler to 
boot, to strike a Marquesan youth on the head for stealing 
a clay pipe from his pocket. He said same youth was only 
an animal. I told him brown men were as good as white, 
especially his kind of white. Had great stand-up fight by 
the settlers' copra shed near Vaekehu's wooden palace. 
Got nasty knock in fourth round, but in fifth round gave 
him one in the starboard eye that flummoxed him ! Beach- 
combers waved their big hats and wildly cheered as he made 
final plunge, and I got one in on the port side of his jib and 
was declared the winner on the spot. 

" Sounds low to fight after travelling so far, but obliged 
to fight so as to gain respect. My fist has been my gold 
medal diploma, my finest letter of introduction, in all 
countries and in the toughest conmiunities. Father 

102 



SANGUINE YOUTH 

O'Leary saw the fight as he left Vaekehu's palace. Says 
he was surprised to see one as presumably respectable as 
I fighting such a man. The priest seemed very pleased that 
I'd only lost one tooth. It's not lost, but is decidedly 
loose ! " 

So runs the entry. I feel it's worth reproducing if only 
to show the material, sanguine side of youth. Besides, it's 
honest to let one see both sides. I've always been lucky. 
When I first ran away to sea I got pally with an ordinary 
seaman who gave me lessons in boxing. One may imagine 
how often I blessed him afterwards. I never dreamed how 
invaluable a commodity a trained fist was for one who loved 
peace and who trusted and felt kindly towards men. 



103 



CHAPTER XI 

Grimes and I fishing — Fish enjoy the Joke — Grog Shanty Chorus 
and Incidents — ^The Drunken Settler — ^The Steaming of Romantic 
Brains — On the Old Hulk — I cannot sleep — My Romance of 
the Figurehead — The Hamlet in the Mountains — The Phantom 
Burglars of the Enchanted Castle 

AFTER our adventure with Rimbo the priest and 
the half-caste girl, Grimes and I returned to the 
shanty, considerably impressed by the scene we 
had witnessed in the forest. The idol and the pillared trees 
of that natural temple, the beauty of the half-caste girl 
kneeling at the altar of dark superstition, haunted us. 

For several days we were very moody and spent our time 
fishing in the shore lagoons, which were connected with the 
ocean by narrow creeks. It was perfect sport. Almost 
every minute we'd pull in large vermilion-striped denizens 
of the deep. The fish, as they came into view on the end 
of our lines, seemed to enjoy the novelty of the game, their 
slit mouths wide open, their bulged eyes agog at the joke of 
it all — so it seemed ! 

As we sat in the grog shanty that night Grimes became 
confidential, and confessed to me that he was a bit gone on 
Waylao. I wasn't surprised to hear that something was 
wrong with him. His fund of conviviality seemed to have 
quite dried up and he had become something of a dreamer. 
The boisterous, quick steps, the hilarious jigs had changed 
into sentimental songs, which he accompanied on his banjo. 
Nothing surprised me in those days. The soberest-looking 
men would suddenly get entangled with widowed or discarded 
native queens, who were ever ready to overstep the Marquesan 
moral code — and that's saying something ! 

I heard wondrous tales in that grog shanty. Strange 
men would rush in from nowhere, stare fiercely as they 
drank their rum, tell us how they had ascended heathen 

104 



FEARSOME HEROES 

thrones and been hastily disillusioned. Nor do I exaggerate 
when I say that it was not unusual for a white man, who had 
ascended the throne of some isle by a strategic marriage, to 
be suddenly disturbed in the wedding chamber by half-a- 
dozen irate heathen monarchs who had married into the 
same dynasty about a week before ! 

So one will see that the heathen coimtries differ little from 
the civilised, where men aspire, enter asylums and shout 
through some night of memory : "I am God, and there is 
no other God but me ! " 

Had some Homer roamed the South Seas in those days 
he could have memorised many a wondrous odyssey. Nearly 
every grog shanty from Fiji to Honolulu was crammed with 
fearsome experiences. The scenic effect on entering a bar 
in those days was this — a crew of fierce-bearded chins that 
were thrust forward in murderous defiance towards some 
opposing crew of fierce-eyed, scrubby, untubbed men who 
strongly challenged a mighty assertion. 

" You're a b — - liar I " would be the yelled response, 
accompanied by thundering choruses of oaths and descend- 
ing fists on the bar demanding rum. Indeed such a scene 
was before me as I sat meditating in that shanty by Tai-o-hae. 
Crash ! came the grand interruption. Like unto a fierce 
covey of barbarian drum-sticks, up went a flock of hairy 
fists, that, descending, struck the grog bar with indisputable 
authority. The half-bred trader swore to the truth. Dare 
one doubt him that the 'Frisco schooner's skipper bought 
twenty barrels of pork, which turned out to be pickled 
Fijian natives who had fallen in the last tribal clash ? 

Then the man who had sailed with Bully Hayes laid down 
the law to the Tahitian descendants of the Bounty mutineers 
who had called him a crimson liar. 

The waxed-moustached Frenchman, with his eternal 
politeness, shrugged his shoulders with surprise as Mrs 
Ranjo explained that she was connected by blood with the 
Spanish throne. 

" Mein gotts, you vash sees the vey we vash does dat in 
Germhanies," came the eternal Teutonic phrase. The mid- 
shipman who had bolted from the windjammer in Sydney 

105 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

drank like a lord and sang The Song of the Thrush, and 
afterwards a sad old English song which made some of the 
men look quite doleful. It did not require The Lost Chord 
to move the hearts of those men — when rum was cheap. 
It's wonderful how an old song or a familiar cry touches the 
memory of a home-sick man, and at that moment a dis- 
sipated, wrinkled old sailorman from London town shouted 
in a rather melancholy voice : " Flies, flies — catch 'em 
ali-eeeeve — oh ! " which reminded his pal, Bob Slimes, of 
home ; he stared vacantly into space for a moment — then 
burst into tears ! 

Outside beneath the moonlit palms, to the trrrrrip-tomp- 
pe-tomp-te of a banjo, and a fiddle made out of a bully-beef 
tin, a few select shellbacks danced with Marquesan maids 
from the village hard by. 

"Aloha! Awai ! Awai, papalagi ! " came the musical 
encores of the dusky girls, followed by a weird clamouring, 
shuffling and hushed laughter. It sounded as though we 
heard the echoes from some heathen underworld as the white 
men answered the muffled screams of the girls who were 
trying to teach them to dance the heathen can-can that had 
been forbidden by the missionaries. 

The university man shifted his eyeglass, flushed and 
quoted a verse in Greek as the naked leg of some dusky 
dancer outside poked through the shanty door, giving those 
pious old shellbacks a fearful shock, as one can imagine. 
It was only a leg, terra-cotta colour, roimded with full, 
perfect symmetry, five polished nails shining like pearls on 
the wagging toes, and it caused a deal of critical comment. 
From the saloon bar came guttural and musical voices of 
customers who had seen better days, and still had some cash 
in hand. "Yesh, old man — hie, hie — you're right, it's 
sheer bosth. A man's a man even if he did bolt with a 
woman — and the brass." Here came much confidential 
whispering. Polished oaths were intermingled with the 
faint echoes of the operatic strain. Ah che la Morte, then 
silence again as someone fell to the floor ! 

Like a death groan the song moaned and faded — it was 
the voice of Pauline's father, who had tried to sing some 

io6 



CLOSING TIME IN TAI-0-HAE 

half-forgotten song of other days. Could one have peeped 
out of that shanty door into the moonlight, he would have 
been seen once more on his regular night route, staggering 
beneath the palms homeward, the eternal white jacket 
fluttering afar as the ever-watching, sinister, white-faced 
man kept by his side, swaying and tottering like some 
awful-looking, sardonic mimic as they returned to that 
lonely home in the hUls. 

"Toime, gentlemen, please!" It was the only call of 
closing time in Tai-o-hae, and came from the umpires out- 
side as two burly, sunburnt men of the sea closed together. 
The struggle soon ceased, A faint hurrah announced the 
victor, as crash ! his opponent fell to the sward. It was 
nothing much, just a little forcible argument between two 
passionate men on some point that neither remembered 
when the winner had been proclaimed, and once again they 
drank — fearless comrades at the shanty bar ! 

Those rough men had a strange fascination for me. I do 
not hint that they were samples of the highest order, but I 
emphatically assert that that shanty was a good old honest 
slop-shop of life. Therein one could go and pick up a good 
bargain in the way of man — ^bad as well as good. It was as 
though Fate had made a glorious fizzling stew, a stock-pot 
of bubbling, singing life, always at boiling-point. Flavoured 
with the finest " familiar juice," a connoisseur could sniff 
at the shanty door the odoriferous steaming poetry, the 
delicious fragrance from the boiled-down wild-bird-like 
songs. It was the steaming of romantic brains, the intoxi- 
cating odours of forgotten moonlit nights — a woman's 
kisses years away, old memories, dead certs and dead dreams. 
For those old birds would sometimes come to the surface, 
flutter their wings and sing unearthly songs, strains of 
haunting beauty, only for a moment as they opened their 
grog-blossomed beaks, flapped their despairing, broken 
wings and then sank once again into the depths of the boiling 
groggy soup ! 

They were at this despairing, flapping stage when 
slowly the hubbub of the shanty faded. One by one the 
men went back to their ships. Songs ceased, and wild 

107 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

ejaculations of spontaneous merriment died out. The two 
pearl fortune hunters from the Paumotus had bummed their 
last drink and were snoring lustily on the atrociously hard 
wooden settee. Mrs Ranjo put out the first two rows of 
candles as old Ranjo struggled into bed with his boots on. 

As Grimes and I stole out into the night we followed the 
last two lurching, ragged shadows as they went arm in arm 
bach to their ship to sleep. They looked like two enormous 
frogs, staggering and hopping in drunken glee, their hind 
legs akimbo. We were the last to arrive on that derelict 
hulk, for it was there that I too retired to sleep. 

But I could not sleep that night. I stole from my bunk 
and crept up on to the old hulk's deck, watching the dim 
horizons, and wishing that the western stars might answer 
that old figurehead's eternal appeal, the call of those beseech- 
ing hands, that the tattered sails might spread, and, ghost- 
like, steal away, taking us across that moon-enchanted sea, 
across phantom oceans beyond the sky -lines of mortal dreams. 
Ah ! how glorious to go out of the realms of Time and yet be 
alive, bound for the beyond, voyaging on an old raft, alone 
with those ragged old shellbacks, singing rollicking chanteys 
with them — till we crashed up against the shores of Im- 
mortality. As I stood there dreaming I half fancied it 
had happened ; that I saw that huddled, sinful crew of 
sailormen, with awestruck, staring eyes, creeping up those 
hallowed shores. It was a mad fancy, I know. I knocked 
the ashes from my pipe and stole below, once again, into the 
bowels of the hulk. Uncle Sam, Grimes, the Irishman, the 
Scotsman and the bank manager were still sleepily arguing 
as they pulled off their boots. One by one they jumped 
into their bunks, where the dead sailors, the old hulk's 
crew, had once slept and dreamed. Select, in the far corner 
by the fore-peak, the university man lay fast asleep, his dirty 
white cuffs still on. 

I lay and stared through the port-hole at the infinite 
expanse of blue sea outside. The world, somehow, did not 
seem to be made for sleep by night. I crept from my bunk 
once more; all was silent below excepting for double-bass 
snores. I stole up on deck. 

io8 



PAULINE'S INFLUENCE 

As I stood there, perfectly alone with the night, so tre- 
mendously vast and lonely did the heavens appear that 
I became, as it were, half-etherealised, inspired by some 
intense, sad religion. I felt half sorry for God. Staring 
up at that vast, mirror-like expanse, I half fancied I saw the 
Great Poet of the Universe enthroned in eternal loneliness, 
encircled by dark infinities, surrounded by His shattered 
dreams — the stars. 

Only that legendary woman, that derelict's figurehead, 
and I seemed to be intensely awake in the whole world. 
The poetry of existence hung like a mysterious shroud about 
me. That figure seemed to be my glorious dead romance. 
She was no insensate, legendary form, but a woman of 
immortal beauty. The crumbling wood became mysteri- 
ously imbued with light, the marble-like shoulders reddened, 
she blushed to the brow. I smelt ancient scents of burning 
sandalwood ; a faint breath of warm wind stole across the 
silent tropic sea ; her glorious hair was outblown. As I 
leaned over, the bosom heaved and the eyes shone with 
etherealised beauty. It was not wonderful to me when she 
moved, and her arms were outstretched to mine. I felt 
the fragrance of those lips breathe incense into my soul. The 
stars shone in her hair. I became half divine. I heard 
the cry of mortality ; it seemed afar off, yet it cried in the 
swinging monotone of the seas on the reefs. I wondered on 
her romance : who was her lover, who the artist that had 
fashioned those beautiful lines, the curves of that graceful 
throat, her head thrown back ? Ah ! where was that poet 
lover as she, the legendary woman of his soul, lived on — 
rotting in the warm, tawny arms, the impassioned clasp of 
the wild, amorous, glorious South ? 

How strange it all seemed — his dust somewhere — ^and that 
figure from his soul still pointing its allegorical hands to the 
far-off stars, still obeying the eternal impulse of his work 

As I stared at that figure I seemed half to remember — 
perhaps / was that dead artist ! What had brought me in 
all the world to that mysterious comer of the South ? I'm 
mad enough, thought I. 

Leaning forward, I struck a match on the poor crumbling 

109 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

shoulder and then deliberately placed the tiny blue flame 
against the wraith's crown of spiritual hair — puff ! a bright 
blaze, a fizzle, and lo ! she had vanishedi — gone ! my 
beautiful romance ! 

I lit my pipe, half chuckling at the thought of my splendid 
madness, the glorious insanity that a tiny match flame could 
so easily dispel. 

I loohed shoreward. The moon was hidden behind a 
wrack of cloud massed to the southward. Though the mist 
seemed to hang in perfect stillness in the heavens, it made 
me stare in breathless admiration as the palm-plimaed 
mountain range and inland peaks slowly rose, grandly, 
silently to the skies. Like some slow-travelling castaway's 
raft, the cloud wrack crept beneath the moon. It seemed 
only by a miracle that those jagged peaks did not burst 
through that crystalline dome of starry heaven. 

That old hulk was not the only romantic spot in the 
heathen land. By a mossy track, not far from the rugged 
feet of the mountains, stood that which now appears across 
the years to have been a phantom-like hamlet. It was a 
native village of tiny huts. One little, grey, wooden building 
stood with its verandahed front facing a gap in the granite 
hills. 

Once or twice I went into that little homestead and played 
the violin, for the settler, John L , was fond of fiddling. 

I slept there one night, or tried to, but the weirdness of 
that little homestead gave me no sleep, for from that en- 
chanted homestead's window one could see the distant 
ocean, looking like a witch's vast cauldron, full of boiling, 
bubbling, fire-flecked, silvered foam. It was a silent, 
windless night that I spent there, yet between the intervals 
of the nightingale's "tin Ian lone, loe Ian ting," up in the 
bread-fruit trees, came weird sounds that thrilled me with 
fear. It was a faint, far-off kind of rasping. It sounded 
as though two burglars were busily filing at the gates of some 
enchanted castle of dreams wherein I slept ! " Sea-saw — 
sea-saw " it went, with a frightening sound, then silence at 
regular intervals. Yes, as though those two burglars, who 
would rob that castle of romance, paused in their nefarious 

no 



PAULINE'S HOME 

work, wondering if they were heard. I was wide awake, 
but still the sounds continued ! As a zephyr of wind came 
and wailed a plaintive accompaniment in the she-oaks, those 
mysterious raspings sounded as though a phantom violon- 
cellist had come to perform at the castle gate. First came 
the low bass's mellow note, and then it seemed that the 
performer's bow was swung over to the " A " string sounding 
some weird, falsetto harmonic ! I leapt from bed, deter- 
mined to rout the troubadour of such an unseemly hour. 
I discovered that, like most romantic ideas, the cause of it 
all was human — and even so had a low origin, for it was 
Pauline's father, drunk, snoring on the verandah, while 
his weird comrade even in sleep followed his deep bass 
snore in a falsetto, obsequious-like echo. 

That was the only occasion that I slept in the white 
girl Pauline's home. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XII 

Imaginary Millionaires — Pearls and Diamonds — The Fate of the 
Sacrilegious — Waylao's Song — The Great Forest Festival — 
Grimes and I fall — So does the Idol — A Free Fight— -Waylao's 
Discovery 

GRIMES and I returned once more to the grog 
shanty, penniless. We had been away on a 
short cruise with a South Sea crank. This 
particular crank — the South Seas abound with them — 
was after pearls. He swore that he knew for a positive fact 
that pearls lay in heaps at the bottom of the shore lagoons, 
and we believed him. 

Our fortunes were made. We almost went balmy with 
delight as we nudged each other in the ribs and speculated 
with our riches in the wildest way, and, it may be guessed, 
we were feeling pretty down in the mouth at the failure 
of our hopes. 

In imagination Grimes had pensioned off several old 
uncles, and had commemorated the goodness of his grand- 
mother by placing a marble monument over her grave in 
Kensal Green. I, too, had been pretty generous, and made 
the eyes shine of old folks at home, also of friends who 
really did not deserve such good luck, for they had done 
little for me when I had arrived back in the old country 
from the great Australian gold-fields, arrayed in a ragged, 
brass-bound midshipman's suit. Well, there we sat, worse 
off than any of them, for not only had our friends afar lost 
the gifts of generosity, but we had spent our savings, the 
hard-earned savings from our last voyage before the mast 
to San Francisco via Honolulu. 

I had persuaded Grimes to come with me on that pearling 
trip. It was all my fault. " Grimes," I said, " I feel awfully 
sorry that I persuaded you to believe in old beery- whiskers " 
(as we called him), " but I'll make it all right as soon as I get 

112 



IN THE SOLOMON ISLES 

a good job on one of the boats. I'll pay you back all you've 
lost. You did say he was a lunatic. I wish I'd believed 

you." 

" That's all roight, mate," said Grimes. He pressed my 
hand. Mrs Ran jo looked a bit fierce and then ticked off 
the next drink that Grimes ordered for himself. We were 
both penniless. 

It did seem a shame, for Grimes had suffered much through 
my sanguine temperament. Nine months before we had 
shipped on a schooner for the Malay Archipelago, calling 
in at Guadalcanar, Solomon Isles. 

It was at the latter place that I had sworn that the idols' 
eyes of those parts were real diamonds, for so I had been told, 
and he believed me. When we crept away through the 
forest, thinking we had safely got the idols' eyes, for we had 
sneaked into the heathen temple, under the very noses of 
the sleeping savages. Grimes fell crash down a hole ! In a 
second the whole tribe of Kai-kai savages were after us ! 
I shall never forget the yells and Grimes's unconventional 
exclamations as he puffed along at my side. When we 
reached the shore we jumped into the canoe, crash ! and 
pushed off, just in time. But the leading savage chief, racing 
like some monstrous, burly ghost in the moonlight, gripped 
Grimes by the tail of his reefer jacket as the canoe swung 
round. The jacket was old and flimsy and, thank God ! it 
gave way. The impetus of the sudden jerk shot our canoe 
right out into the bay. We were saved ! 

We almost cried when we got back to our old windjammer 
that lay out in the stream, by the promontory. The idols' 
eyes turned out to be bits of broken glass, glass which had 
evidently been chipped by stealth from ships' port-holes. 

No wonder on this present occasion Grimes and I were 
feeling wretched, when Waylao suddenly entered the grog 
shanty. I don't know how it came about, but Ranjo, with 
the aid of some of the shellbacks, got her to sing. 

Grimes and I sat staring, as it were, at some beautiful 

apparition in that cloud of bluish tobacco smoke, swaying 

to and fro as she sang. Grimes gave it up, and laid his 

banjo down ; he could not follow that wild, beautiful melody. 

H 113 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

But I seemed to become inspired as I lifted the violin to my 
chin and extemporised an obligato. The old beachcombers 
swore they never heard so sweet a melody, and the girl 
looked like some beautiful goddess, with a far-away look in 
her star-like eyes. I half wondered at my talent ; it was as 
though I played on my own heart-strings. Perhaps the 
memory of Waylao's pilgrimage to Rimbo, that forest 
cathedral in Nature's stronghold, had awakened some 
barbaric strain of musical genius in my soul. 

Grimes said he believed implicitly in God, the Holy Ghost, 
the hereafter, and all kinds of peculiar, uncockneyfied things 
that night. As for me, I confess I also felt inspired. We 
reddened to our ears when Waylao stepped forward and 
thanked me for the way I had played. She thanked Grimes 
too. I felt his hand trembling as he handed me my lemonade. 
I could not stand strong liquor like Grimes and those seasoned 
shellbacks. Though I have often been praised for this 
solitary virtue of mine, those who praised me little dreamed 
how my heart mourned within me at the thought that I 
could not take strong liquor. They knew not how often I 
cursed the Fates, how I gazed with envy on those fearless 
men who drank at the bar and clutched heaven in one hand 
while I am denied through a weak stomach ! So do I jog 
along through life, not only a member of the vast army of 
sad teetotallers, but one who grieves in sympathy with them. 

After that song Waylao hurried away. She was off to 
the native festival. There was something special on that 
night. As we sat in the grog shanty we could hear the 
drums beating the stars in with unusual vigour. A great 
heathen carnival was in progress, some mystical rite 
that commemorated the wonders of the heathen deity 
Pulutu. 

I believe that dance was the last great primeval orgy 
indulged in by the Marquesan race, for gradually the officials 
condemned the old rites, till hardly one was left on the 
Government programme of the great "Permissible." 

Pious whites said it was disgraceful that people should be 
heard laughing and dancing in the moonlight, and so the 
Marquesan race died out, sat silent round their camp-fires, 

114 




Forest Scenp:, Marquesas Group 




*^4«-*WW-xr;t^i^ 



VI. 




OFF TO THE OPERA 

and one by one crept into the grave — out of deep gloom into 
deeper silence. 

Some of those heathen dances were a bit grotesque, I 
must admit. They reminded one vividly of a London or 
Paris music hall performance, with vast mirrors on the 
roof and stage walls, the ballet girls, terra-cotta coloured, 
whirling against a background of moonlit coco-palms and 
distant starlit mountains. 

But to return to the dance in question. Grimes and 
I determined to attend that festival, in fact had been 
invited by the old high chief from Anahao. As we left the 
grog shanty. Grimes was still ruminating over Waylao's 
beauty, and the charm of her voice. We did not know it 
then, but she too must have been tramping on through the 
forest, ahead of us, making her way to the festival. I 
suppose she was really off to meet her Indian lover, Abduh, 
whose wretched skull, well polished, with the brains scooped 
out, would have made a fitting spittoon for the grog shanty 
by Tai-o-hae. 

As we passed over the westward slopes, Father O'Leary 
was tugging at his bell-rope, calling his children to prayer. 

The night sky was crowded with stars. The very winds 
were scented with the odours of romance as whiffs crept from 
the orange groves and the over-ripe Jies (bananas). It was a 
beautiful spot we had to cross ere we reached the native 
festival. As we passed along the mossy tracks we heard 
the island nightingales singing. High over the giant bread- 
fruit trees we could hear the whir of migrating, long- 
necked cranes, looking like whitened skeletons of dead men 
rushing beneath the moon. We heard the rattlings of the 
bones, then came their leader's wild, crazy cry as they faded 
seaward. Sometimes, like a flock of frightened gnomes or 
dusky fairies, a group of surprised native children bobbed 
their shaggy heads out of the ferns of the forest floor, and 
vanished in the shadows, for we were approaching the 
natural stockade of a half-pagan, tiny city. Shadows in a 
hurry seemed dodging about. We heard the faint booming 
of drums and the weird wails of barbarian flutes and 
screaming bamboo fifes. 

115 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Emerging from the forest bread-fruits, we sighted the 
native village. All was a-bustle in that now dead Babylon 
of the South Seas, By the little groups of small bird-cage 
huts, made in picturesque style of yellow bamboo and 
twining sinnet, sat the wild denizens of the forest. It 
seemed as if we had suddenly passed through some little 
forest door that led from reality into faeryland. The 
coco -nut-oil lamps burning with a pale light by the hut 
doors gave a magical effect to the scene as they flickered 
in the brilliant moonlight. By some of the bee-hive-shaped 
dens sat handsome, savage, semi-nude old men and women, 
the genuine tattooed chiefs and their wives — the faded, 
dusky, harem beauties of a past which teemed with awful 
cannibalistic orgies. As those grim old warriors, dressed in 
the picturesque, barbaric Marquesan garb, sat there, they 
looked like idols or images, or tree trunks carved to resemble 
man. Only the blinking of the bright, dark eyes and drifts 
of tobacco smoke coming from their lips revealed the fact 
that they breathed. Some had their hair well oiled, done up 
mopwise, bunched high on top of the head ; it almost looked 
as if some humorist had stuck huge coco -nuts on broad, 
living, headless shoulders, and painted hideous faces on them. 
Those grotesque physiognomies considerably enhanced the 
fine appearance of the really handsome Marquesan chiefs, 
who, squatting opposite their less fortunate companions, 
smoked vigorously and repeatedly expectorated on the naked 
feet of the chiefs who sat before them. (I believe this odious 
anointment was a sacrificial act of extreme politeness, a 
survival of some old rite that expressed brotherhood.) 

Just on the outskirts of those picturesque village huts 
was a cleared forest patch, where was erected a kind of 
pae-pae, fashioned something after the style of the old 
heathen altars. Decorated with gorgeous hibiscus blossoms 
and forest festoons, which glimmered amongst the hanging 
lanterns, it inspired one with a vivid idea of what the old 
primeval fetes must have been. The chief attraction of this 
pae-pae was the monstrous wooden idol that adorned it. 
The carven face was the acme of ugliness, and had been 
painted up for the occasion. The goggling glass eyes seemed 

ii6 



A BARBARIAN ORCHESTRA 

to express the glorious humour of the situation. The big, 
sht mouth revealed one huge tooth, and its fixed grin ex- 
pressed wonder, as though it showed its delight at being 
brought out of its hiding-place once more to be reinstated 
as supreme deity of heathen-land. Just below the pae-pae, 
directly opposite the huge wooden feet of the tiki (idol), 
squatted a bevy of pretty Marquesan girls. They looked 
like a group of dusky nymphs as they swayed their nut- 
brown arms and the moonlit wind uplifted their masses of 
dark hair. Some had golden tresses (dyed with coral lime). 

"Did you ever!" said Grimes, as we both watched, 
fascinated. 

"No, I never," was all I could utter in reply. 

I seemed to be gazing on some magical reproduction of 
primeval life in a world that had long since passed away. 
They were clapping their hands, swaying their flower- 
swathed bodies and singing some Marquesan madrigal, a 
tender, far-off -sounding melody, that might have been the 
death-song of their fast-vanishing race. 

Snug among the leafy pillars of that primitive lyceum of 
the forest squatted the royal orchestra. One tremendous 
drum sought to outrival the various melodious but weird 
effects of the chief soloists. Those players had been hired 
from far and near, and were the finest performers extant. 
The ease with which they produced their effects on such 
simple instruments was astounding. Some blew, by means 
of the nostrils, through tiny flutes, others puffed with their 
lips at screaming bamboo fifes, and some twanged on 
stringed gourds. One tawny old chief, who had both his 
ears missing, scraped violently on an old German fiddle. 
It only possessed two strings, but he played it fairly well. 
Probably he had got it from some sailor who had given 
him a few lessons with the bargain. He screwed his face 
up as he played, and when he repeatedly put his tongue out 
and rolled his eyes, the little children shrieked with delight. 

Notwithstanding the pandemonium of sound, the fierce 
rivalry between each performer as they puffed their lips, 
crashed drum-sticks, howled and twanged, it seemed as 
though the soul of some barbarian Wagner had burst, had 

117 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

exploded from a wonderful bomb of pent-up inspiration, 
and the maestro, in that forest, was chasing the flying echoes 
in anguish, ere they were lost for ever ! I do not exaggerate 
in this description, and Grimes tugging away at the banjo 
and I playing the violin felt like two happy barbarians as 
that forest carnival reached the zenith in a marvellous 
cataract of sound. Just by my conducting desk — an old 
egg-box — sat the dethroned king from the Paumotus Group. 
He had been favourably received in Marquesan society, and 
seemed to swell with renewed majesty, his very nostrils 
dilating with the excitement as the maids commenced to 
dance — and what dances ! 

Grimes and I forgot to play our parts as the dancers 
became inspired on that primeval stage before the footlights 
of the stars I Their feet seemed literally to point and hover 
skywards, as they performed the equivalent of a Marquesan 
can-can. 

We stood up, gazing breathlessly with astonishment, our 
hands raised. We must have looked like two gasping 
idiots — Grimes with scrubby face and mouth wide open, and 
I attired in my old, tattered, brass-bound midshipman's 
suit, and on my head a dilapidated white helmet hat. 
Sometimes the moon, in the domed vault of that palladium, 
became dimmed, as small woolly clouds drifted across the 
sky. Directly the travelling mist had passed beneath the 
eye of night, up went the shadowy curtain from that forest 
drama. And once more the dancing legs, the flying, gauzy 
veils of figures flitting in rhythmical swerves, and the rows 
of delighted, excited eyes came into full view. The scenic 
effect was that of some enchanted forest, where magical 
waterfalls of moonlight poured down through dark-branched 
palms from the sky, while dusky, faery-like creatures danced 
through those magical waterfalls, their eyes bright with 
wondering delight as one by one their soft feet landed on the 
forest pae-pae. 

Suddenly the leading drum went bang !^ — the echo 
travelling like a jumping football of ghostly sound across 
the hills. That drum-head was made from the tightened, 
tawny skin of some dead chief ! The rim was ornamented 

ii8 



THE SOUL OF THE DRUM 

with the scalp and beard ! As that echo faded seaward, an 
uncanny thought struck my emotional senses. It seemed 
that the dead chief's spirit had haunted that drum, had been 
imprisoned inside, and now, at that tremendous crash had 
escaped — in frightened tumult across the hills ! That smash 
was the sign for the orchestra to cease, but still the dancers 
danced on. A puff of scented, cool sea-wind crept through 
the forest bread-fruits, and touched those performing, dusky 
figures, sweeping the gauzy robes all one way. 

The scenic effect changed, and that moonlit stage looked 
like some wonderful scene of happy faery creatures dancing 
in silence, faintly perceived in a vast mirror that reflected 
the skies, a mirror that some grim humorist in heaven had 
suddenly turned upside down — so grotesque yet faery-like 
were the rhj^hmical contortions of those flower-bedecked, 
dancing maids. 

The high chief from Anaho swayed his war-club with 
delight. Tattooed warriors, wearing the royal insignia of 
knighthood (exquisitely tattooed armorial bearings on the 
shoulders and breast), stood by, drinking toddy from the 
festival calabash. 

Suddenly the prima donna stepped forth to entertain, 
and to reveal the beauty of her race. The handsome youths 
and men arose en masse as she emerged from the bamboos 
that towered just behind the huge wooden idol's back. 

"Aloha! Aloha! Awai ! Awai ! " they cried in musical 
speech, as she made obeisance to the audience in bewitching 
Marquesan style. She commenced to dance, flitting across 
the stage in the radiance of the moonlight, which appeared 
the more magical as the small, blue-burning flames of the 
little coco-nut-oil lamps flickered in the breeze. The audience 
stared, breathless with anticipation. 

She seemed to be some embodiment of Marquesan grace 
and poetic mythology. Her figure swayed to the tender 
adagio strain, as I caught the spirit of the weird chant and 
her movements and played on my violin. In some mysteri- 
ous way she seemed tied to the tempo, to the throbbing wails 
of those waves of sound, so perfect, so exquisite was her 
every movement to each suggestion of the melody. Her 

119 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

tappa robe, of the most delicate material, lifted to the forest 
winds, the diaphanous folds clinging to her figure ere they 
loosened, and flying out from her heels as she flitted 
across the bamboo stage of that arena. At this sight the 
enamoured youths, standing in rows by the palms and 
mangoes, yelled with delight: "Aloha! Yoranna, Atua ! 
Mon dieu ! " The last two words being a French Marquesan's 
most fervent expression. 

But it was the intense expression of vanity gratified on 
her face that spoilt the imaginary effect and destroyed the 
illusion that some wraith of the forest, some heathen goddess, 
danced and sang before me. 

Nor was her flush of pride to be blamed, for those 
Marquesan youths were indeed handsome. There they 
stood, knee-deep in the ferns, their dark faces aglow with 
impassioned thought, their eyes shining like glowing, sinful 
stars. About their perfectly shaped loins they had swathed 
the latest fashion festival sash, its scanty width adorned 
with tassels, and tied, bow-wise, coquettishly at the left knee. 
I will not dwell on that prima donna's solo, for it would 
be impossible to give the faintest impression in words of 
the magical sounds of such weird, extempore melody. 

As all the maids who were squatting beneath the palms 
and bread-fruit trees joined in the refrain the effect was 
most fascinating. Nor was the fascination spoilt by those 
dusky youths who made strange sounds, in perfect tempo, 
as the song proceeded, by clicking their tongues ! Though 
I am unable adequately to describe a Marquesan dance of 
the old days, I can give an idea of the music, or at least of 
the impression that is left on my memory, in the following 
specimen of a Marquesan dance : 



Andante 



ENTR'ACTE BARBARB. 

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A. Safroni 
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121 



WINE-DARK SEAS 



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D.C.to'%, 



It was in the finale, the mighty tutti, that the swelling 
crescendo and the passion of the barbarian, orchestral 
music rose and fell and faded into silence after the drmns 
had ceased their primeval grandeur. 

" Ter fink Oi've lived to see this 'ere day," said Grimes 
hoarsely. 

"To think I've lived to hear it," I responded, as we 
dodged our heads in the nick of time, as thirteen happy 
savages whirled past, swaying war-clubs ! 

Aged, tattooed chiefs, chief esses and plebeian, savage 
old women joined in that dance. Off they went, their stiff 
limbs scorning old age, as memories of youth and pagan 
days returned. The little children gazed from the hut doors 
with awestruck eyes, screamed with delight, clapped their 
tawny hands with childish ecstasy to see the antics, the 
high kicks of their erstwhile sedate old grandparents. 
I can still see those astonished little brown beggars as they 

132 



I FEEL HUMOROUS 

stand there ; even the glass eyes of their old rag dolls, that 
they held in their arms, looked surprised. Those contortions 
seemed impossible. Grimes and I held our hands up, 
breathless, spellbound with expectancy — but not a leg 
quivered, not a hip, not a limb or muscle was dislocated. 

I felt like some happy barbarian. My nationality faded. 
The cares of the world fell from me, and I felt a strange 
affection for that old, stalwart humorist, the idol, standing 
before me, and I could have worshipped that grotesque 
wooden god of the pae-pae ! 

I looked at Grimes ; the wonder of it all shone in his 
merry eyes. I thought of far-off old England, of grim 
conventionality. What a shock for my country to hear a 
wooden drum bang and up go rows of dusky legs ! I thought 
of the funny old men who yearned to reconstruct modern 
civilisation — Members of Parliament ; men who would re- 
verse things, put the roof on the floor and the floor on the 
roof, reconstruct our entrails, our hopes, fears and feelings. 
What would they think, I wondered, if suddenly confronted 
with such a sight — a sunburnt British youth playing a 
violin to that heathen festival dance ? But I am incor- 
rigible, and as I sat there, imagining the horror on those 
British physiognomies to see me taking part in that terrible 
pandemonium, I snatched my red handkerchief from my 
pocket and tried to smother the laughter that convulsed 
my being. 

The festival dancers whirled ; crash ! went that awful 
drum and still I reflected. I knew that those happy bar- 
barians were the descendants of ferocious cannibals ; indeed 
some of them had practised heathen rites but a few years ago. 
I wondered which was the most terrible : to eat your dead 
pal on toast, or to be a Christian, build cathedrals with spires 
pointing to the skies in the name of immortal salvation, while 
tender little kiddies, sad old men and women starve in the 
streets, 

I laughed again. Grimes thought I had gone mad. I 
was as bad then as I am now, only I laughed more and was 
imaginative. 

The dethroned king from the Paumotus Isles gazed 

123 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

frowningly upon my merriment. He was suspicious ; 
thought I was making light of that royal display, little 
dreaming the truth ! 

Grimes and I ducked our heads as the covey of handsome 
native girls, arms akimbo, swept in whirling circles by us. 
We heard the swish of the gauzy, flower-bedecked robes. 
We ducked our heads just in the nick of time as they swung 
their perfect limbs skyward. The prima donna's pearly 
toe-nails caught in Grimes's curly hair. He yelled. Oh, 
the glorious memory of it all ! The drums were beating a 
hundred strong, the weird barbarian fifes screamed. Some- 
thing happened, my senses swam in some delicious indecision. 
I tried to look shocked — a beautiful, savage girl had em- 
braced me ! 

" Aloah ! " she murmured deliciously in my ear. I 
gazed interrogatively at my comrade. " Shall it be ? " 

" Whose ter know ? " whispered Grimes enviously. 

Then ! How can I boldly confess the truth ? 

What will you think of me, O my civilised brothers, sweet- 
scented, hair-combed men ? Just think of it — I fell ! I laid 
my violin down in the forest ferns ; I gazed about stealthily. 
Once more she whispered : " Aloah ! O beautiful papalagi ! " 
Then I and Grimes whirled away into the wild dance, joined 
that barbarian melee ! 

It's a sad confession, I know. But why should America 
rejoice in the proud memory of a Washington, and England 
lag behind ? 

Think of the many men of distinction who have roamed 
and written of those Southern hemispheres. Captain Cook, 
the first pioneer, the cruise of the Casco with R.L.S., the 
Snark, Becks and Melvilles, and no such confession right 
up to date ! I hope posterity, when I am gone, will re- 
member with pride that it was I, a Britisher, who first 
told the truth about Southern Seas. 

• • • * • • • 

However, I must return to my description of the spectacle. 

Evidently this was a special gathering of various types 
of dusky men and women of all the islands, tiers on tiers 
of handsome and ugly faces. Some were splendid savage 

124 



ENGLAND'S GEORGE WASHINGTON 

old men, some representing the types of races that lived 
on isles a thousand leagues away, gathered together beneath 
the terraced arches of that amphitheatre of pillared bread- 
fruits and Nature's colonnades of exquisitely twisted vine- 
work. Over this branched roof shone the stars, inextin- 
guishably beautiful lamps of heaven . There were j ovial faces ; 
lean, avaricious faces, brooding, sardonic physiognomies ; 
poetic faces seared with wrinkles ; philosophical expressions ; 
Voltaires, Spinozas, Darwins ; sad old dethroned kings and 
faded queens — all squatting in the shadows as the oil lamps 
twinkled on the tasselled boughs above us. There were 
short, swarthy men, long men, fat men, wide men, square 
men, sensuous-looking women, voluptuous figures tattooed 
in conspicuous parts, scraggy women with faces like wrinkled 
toads, whose savage tattoo of hieroglyphic beauty showed 
off to advantage the handsome Marquesan physique. 
Honest old chiefs sat alone in their poverty, attired in 
primitive loin-cloths of Poverty's scanty width. Budding 
poets gazed with thoughtful eyes on flippant old men and 
pompous chiefesses. Vainglorious girls strutted before their 
less fortunate sisters, wearing yellow stockings and little 
else. The inevitable poor relations gazed with weary, 
envious eyes on the huge calabash of sparkling toddy, 
moistening their parched lips as high chiefs and chiefesses 
quaffed at its rim deliciously. 

Grimes and I respected those clean-bodied, handsome 
savages^ — flealess, immaculate in mind and attire, as they 
danced around us. And yet, alas ! the hand of civilisation 
had touched them, for as with a crash the exiled king from 
the Solomon Isles fell from bis bamboo erection, he still 
clutched at the keg of the best rum from across the seas — 
exchanged for copra to make scented oils to plaster down 
the hair of commercial savages in civilised lands ! 

What with the wild laughter and beating drums, it seemed 
more like a ghostly fete day than night, and so brOliant was 
the moon that one could distinguish the various shades of 
the uplifted hair of the Marquesan girls. 

Grimes and I were not the only fascinated spectators of 
that barbarian burlesque. Several white settlers, French 

125 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

gendarmes and officials, Indians, Malay, Chinese, and one 
or two giant niggers stood in the shade of the bread-fruits 
watching that scene. The Marquesan Slite sat in the royal 
box — a kind of platform erected in the arbour of thick 
bamboo clumps. These spectators belonged to the missions, 
and attended the stone churches near Tai-o-hae. They were 
attired in European garb. Some even gazed through 
spectacles on the scene, making critical comments on the 
dress of their primitive brethren or the quality of the music 
of that South Sea orchestra. 

As the first cataclysm of sound faded away, and the chief 
drummer rested his arm for the new con furioso overture, 
Grimes and I, taking the opportunity to look round, caught 
sight of Waylao standing amongst the spectators by the 
bamboos. 

Grimes was full of enthusiasm, and wanted to cross the 
space to speak to her. But at that moment someone leaned 
against the great wooden idol, it overbalanced, and fell with 
a crash. 

This accident was a terrible omen, for the old wooden 
deity was tapu, which meant that anyone who touched 
it was liable to be clubbed on the quiet. The aesthetic- 
looking old chiefs and the superstitious chiefesses positively 
groaned in their anguish as the fallen deity was slowly lifted 
up from its degraded position. I don't know what happened 
after that. I believe there was a general fight, the Christian- 
ised, Catholic natives of the French churches taking one side 
and the Protestants the other. 

For the time being I will leave Marquesan affairs and 
follow the deluded Waylao, who was off that night to meet 
the Indian ex-convict — her beautiful romance. 

Near the spot where Waylao stood watching the native 
festival was the small pagan village. As she stared across 
the space the children peeping from the hut doors shouted, 
" Aloah ! Mai le tupa I " for they knew Waylao well. 

The half-caste girl took no heed of the cheerful salutations, 
for she had suddenly spotted the turbaned cranium of her 
lover, Abduh Allah, beneath the buttressed banyans some 
distance away. I believe he held the Koran in his hand, 

126 



AH, PAULINE ! 

anyway he looked a holy beggar. Beside him stood a veiled 
figure. Waylao stared. What did it all mean — her noble 
cut-throat looking down into the eyes of some feminine 
being ? It was terrible. Her brain seemed as though it 
would burst with the flood of jealousy that swamped her 
senses. The noise of the distant festival chanting was 
unheard. One question only interested her — who was 
that Avho stood by the side of her noble, Islamic hubby ? 
Suddenly the slim form by Abduh's side flung aside her 
Oriental silk hooded wrap. Was it a ghost by his side — 
some phantom girl of the forest staring up into her lover's 
face with pleading eyes ? No. Notwithstanding all the 
mythological goddesses, all the shadows of Pulutu and 
legendary wonders that haunted that enchanted heathen 
land, the Indian settler's companion was none other than 
the faery being from the little grey hamlet by the mountains 
— the white girl Pauline. 

Waylao rubbed her eyes. Was she dreaming ? What 
hint of her unwanted presence had reached Abduh's soul, 
making that wraith of the forest vanish so hurriedly ? 

In the flood of passionate pain that overwhelmed the 
senses of the half-caste girl was a terrible feeling as of 
something lost, leaving her a degraded creature, dominated 
by one passion — jealousy. This she told me long after 
and under the strangest of circumstances. 



127 



CHAPTER XIII 

Wherein I describe the Harem Cave — Oriental Picturesqueness 
and Mohammedan Faith in its Bald State 

IN this chapter I will take the reader to one of the many 
beautiful caverns of natural subterranean architecture 
that are to be found in the Marquesan Group, both in 
the mountain districts and by the shore. 

In one of these caverns a certain group of Malay Indians 
had their stronghold, where they lured the semi-civilised 
native girls. 

It will be obvious that I can give no more than a meagre 
account of all that followed the betrayal of Waylao, and in 
reference to Pauline's acquaintance with Abduh, which I 
hinted at in the close of the preceding chapter, I do not 
wish to do more than paint a picture in chameleon colours 
of the incidents connected with her infatuation for the 
aforesaid abomination. 

Neither do I make these remarks because I have any 
inward qualms as to my method of placing the facts of the 
case before my reader. My doubts are absolutely nil. I 
know that a man reigns king over the dominions of his own 
book if he dips his pen in his own ink — the molten centre 
of his own experiences. 

When Waylao reached the Indian's side she looked into 
his eyes as though she would read his soul. But I suppose 
that the instincts of woman failed her in the supreme moment 
and she did not appear to doubt the veracity of his explana- 
tion. I can well imagine that his voice was musical and 
sounded divinely truthful. How could she be expected to 
doubt so noble, so manly-looking a lover ? 

Most of us place our confidence in the most unworthy 
objects. It's a pity that faith, which Providence lends us, 
is not double-sighted in women — and in men too. 

128 



THE POWER OF ISLAM 

It was at this meeting that the Indian persuaded the girl 
to go with him to the cavern. 

" Must I go ?" she said fearfully. 

There was no light of mercy in that masterful gaze, as 
the girl hesitated, seeking to fathom the truth with her own 
poor, blinded eyes. 

Her innocent glamour had created that thing that stood 
before her, clad in Oriental silken swathings, a coiled 
turban on its head. It represented the embodied god of 
her romantic dreams. 

The deceit of that spittoon-like skull triumphed. He led 
her away into the shadows, just as the devil in Eden led 
happy Eve. But he took no risks — he held her tightly by the 
wrist, and repeatedly reassured the girl by tender pressures. 

They were off to the Mohammedan mosque, the harem 
cavern by Temoria. It will be hard to piece together the 
scene in that hell of passion, and describe all that Waylao 
must have felt as she fell beneath that Nemesis — the hand 
of her own idolatry and the power of Islam. 

The remorse and the tears and the sorrow which followed 
she confessed to Father O'Leary long after. But that is not 
to be written yet, and sometimes I wish that I may never 
tell it. 

The memory of that girl's story and her weeping voice 
now seems as far away as the stars which flashed in the 
vault over the windy tips of those bread-fruit trees by 
Tai-o-hae. I could almost tell Waylao 's thoughts as she 
crept by that man's side, on to her fate. I will attempt 
to describe all that followed. 

" Ta'ala [come], O Hassan Marah, ta'ala ! " whispered 
that Calcutta cut-throat as he led the girl along the forest 
track. They had reached the sea. Between the tree 
trunks the waves were distinctly visible. It was a beautiful 
spot that surrounded that secret temple of Mohammed 
worshippers. As Waylao tripped beside the tempter her 
sandalled feet brushed the carpet of forest flowers. She 
was proud of those sandals. I must admit they looked well, 
fastened to her feet with red ribbon from the little Islamic 
carpet bag. 

I 129 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

"Marah [wifey], I take thee to where thou shalt see 
many wonders ; but remember that I love thee as man 
never loved maid before. Also, forget not that thou art 
now a child of Mohammed. Think not that whatever thou 
seest is anything else but what it is ! " (I can imagine that 
he smiled grimly here at the thought of uttering so great a 
truth !) 

Then he continued : " Remember, O chUd of beauty, that 
our humble mosque, which is but a symbol of the Almighty 
Prophet's creed, is the Mecca of all our happiness ; and all 
that happens therein is symbolical of all that happens." 

The foregoing is a fair example of Indian Mohammedan 
lore as dabbled in by its preachers in the islands. 

They had now reached the shore. For miles along the 
coast by the serried lines of giant bread-fruits and palms 
shone the blue lagoons that reflected reefs of stars. 

As though a ghost had crept from the forest to warn 
Waylao, her shadow crept in front of her. Abduh's mon- 
strous silhouette also dodged in front of him, so grotesque, 
so hideous that it might well have been the true index of 
his mind expressed in his shadow to warn the mad girl. 
Suddenly they arrived at the hollow in the volcanic rock. 
It was the entrance to the mosque. Once in ages past that 
great cavern by the sea had been moulded by Nature's 
volcanic passion — and now the children of those wild 
lands were lured into those old bowels wherein glowed the 
passions of a greater hell. An old-time Chinese opium 
den, joss-house or fan-tan den in 'Frisco or George Street, 
Sydney, was a positive holy citadel compared with that 
cavernous hole of debauchery and Mohammedanistic 
religion. 

Waylao trembled with fright. The Indian, taking no 
risks, still clutched her arm like some monstrous spider, as 
she looked behind her, stared over her shoulder in fear. 
Then they entered that hollow doorway and left the moonlit 
seas outside. The Indian, still clutching her arm, bent his 
turbaned head as he passed beneath the low roof of that 
subterranean passage, that harem cave of Mohammedanism 
in Southern Seas. Did her heart flutter and all hope die 

130 






WHERE PURE WATERS BLUSH 

as she entered there ? God only knows. Most likely she 
would have escaped if the man had not held her. 

No sooner had they entered that tunnel-way than she 
heard the murmur of singing harem beauties and the 
mumblings of far-off encores. Sounds of ribald heathenish 
himees (Marquesan cannibal songs) came to her astonished 
ears, accompanied with faint whiffs of opium and scented gin. 

Ah me ! Had I and my old shellbacks had the slightest 
idea or hint of all that happened in that cavern, methinks 
there would have been a mighty rumpus between shellback- 
ism and the Mohammedanistic propaganda one dark night. 
Several pious Indians would have been seen floating seaward 
on the next tide, with their skulls cracked. 

Such an Island Night Entertainment was not to be found 
in the length and breadth of the North and South Pacific 
as that one in the underworld. Had Robert Louis Stevenson 
known of such a cavern, what a book we should have had 
to-day. 

The scene that met Waylao's eyes as she emerged from 
that tunnel-way was like some wildly exaggerated orgy of 
the heathen days. 

I who stood in that hellish hole of past iniquity when the 
great crash came which overthrew that inferno can well 
explain the scene that met her eyes. 

It was a large cavern, the rugged walls glittering with 
stalactites, a roof adorned with scintillating festoons mirrored 
in the silent pool waters that divided that subterranean 
temple's floor. 

The pool was left by each tide's rise, forming a kind of 
underworld blue lagoon of exquisite beauty. At the glassy 
bottom waved fern-like seaweeds, clinging to beautiful twist- 
ing arms of vermilion-hued and alabaster coral. The water 
was as clear as the purest crystal. Just overhead, dangling 
from the roof, hung glimmering oil-lamps that threw flicker- 
ing shadows into the far corners of the subterranean chamber. 
The mirrored flames in those waters touched the red corals 
and gave a blood-red hue which added to the mystery of 
that wide, rocky hollow. It seemed that the waters blushed 
at the scenes they reflected in their translucent depths, the 

131 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

dusky harem beauties who danced beneath those hanging 
lamps. 

The turbaned plantation gentry who inhabited those 
headquarters had erected a pae-pae at the far end of the 
chamber, where rose the roof to the height of about eight 
feet. It was on this pae-pae (stage) that the newly con- 
verted native girls, or newly wedded brides, sang their 
farewells to Christianity and went through those rhythmical 
swervings and indescribable postures that so delighted the 
eyes of their swarthy Eastern masters. 

It was one of these sights that met Waylao's eyes as she 
entered that harem temple. A wedding dance was in full 
swing. The blue lagoon was shining like a vast mirror 
beneath the hanging lamps and faithfully reflected the 
shadows of festival dancers. At the far end, by the rocky 
walls, where the roof sloped down to barely a man's height, 
were several rough wooden tables. Round these tables sat 
Indian and Chinese settlers playing a kind of fan-tan, 
smoking and drinking with joss-house liberality. 

It will not be libellous to state that several of them were 
escapes from Fijian law. On mats close by squatted 
several Marquesan chiefs who had entered that holy order. 
They were a wild crew, and much that happened in their 
midst can be better imagined than described. Several 
Marquesan maids, dressed in Oriental robes of gauzy design, 
were on the platform dancing some kind of can-can. The 
winds of heaven creeping in from the moonlit sea outside 
quite innocently abetted that lascivious scene ; their unseen, 
shifting fingers touched the swaying girls, threw the un- 
loosed robes right out from their feet, and then once again 
let them cling to the dancing, voluptuous figures. 

The handsome faces of the dancers were aglow with pride 
as their excited masters shouted : "Kattar rheyrak ! " 

These girls were the wives of the Malay Indians. There 
seemed more wives than husbands knocking about, but that 
is explained by the fact that the creed of the Great Mecca 
Prophet allowed a man four wives to go on with ere he 
reached Elysium. 
On a dais sat four aged, pock-marked marabouts reading 

132 



THE PITY OF IT ! 

the Koran. Their long beards pointed ever and anon to the 
cavern's roof as some holy simile came from their lips. 

As Waylao gazed with astonishment on the scene, a swarthy 
old Indian mongrel, under the influence of liquor, pros- 
trated himself before her. Abduh gave him a nudge in the 
ribs with his boot and the old roui at once ceased pouring 
forth praises to the virtues of Mohanmied's beard. 

" O mine Ayishah, O beautiful Marah, drink ! " whis- 
pered the alluring voice of Waylao's Oriental hubby. The 
girl's head swam with fear. She had already repented 
coming to that hell. The sights that she witnessed re- 
minded her of all that she had thrown aside for the sake of 
her infatuation. The heaven that the great Potter had 
mixed in her own elemental clay blushed to her throat's 
dusky whiteness. The natural beauty of the girl's face was 
intensified by the half-shrinking appeal of her eyes and 
expression. To see her standing there with the bit of pink 
ribbon fluttering at her throat, the hibiscus flowers in her 
pretty hair, must have made even the engrossed cut -throats 
at the card-tables stare for a moment and forget their tricks. 

The sight of those dancing, full-blooded Marquesan girls 
on that pae-pae sickened her. Nor was it to be wondered 
at. Those tawny figures of perfect grace swayed their 
limbs with pride, yes, surveyed their own symmetrical pro- 
portions as the brass leg bangles jingled and the glass jewels 
flashed as their limbs swung roofward in response to the 
encores of Islamic delight. 

Abduh's voice pleaded passionately for his wishes. Indeed 
Waylao recovered so much that she even smiled at the 
admiration that was so evident in the eyes of the men 
about her. 

"Marhabba ! " (" Welcome ! ") cried those young Islamic 
knuts as they stood up from their gaming tables, threw their 
shoulders back, screwed their heads sideways and surveyed 
the comely half-caste girl. Some went too far. Abduh 
saw the look of realisation leap into her eyes. She looked 
terrified. 

" Something must be done at once : this will never do," 
was his mental reflection. 

133 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Drink, Marah ! " The voice was insinuating and sweet. 
Hardly knowing what she did, Waylao let the innocent- 
looking coco -nut-shell goblet linger at her lips. Then she 
gazed helplessly at his masterful eyes, half in wonder. The 
jovial yellow boys from the Malay Archipelago, and the 
Sudan and Calcutta reprobates clinked their mugs. "Allah 
be with thee ! " they murmured. 

Somehow even their voices were hushed. It almost 
seemed that even they saw the shame of it all, that so fair 
a creature should fall into the spider-like clutch of that 
abomination. 

Waylao blushed again. It was not the blush of shame, 
but the warmth of vanity and the feverish effects of that 
potion, the wretched ecstasy of morphine and gin, as those 
handsome men fell at her feet and paid obeisance to her 
beauty. Did she dream ? What was this wonderful wor- 
ship that made her feel she was some heathen queen, as 
that crew of flushed faces whispered praise into her ears ? 

" Mebsoot ! Mebsoot ! " called the Marquesan girls. 
" Blessed be the great Mahomeys ! " It was the one little 
bit of Indian language that they had learnt. Even the fine 
eyes of those abandoned native girls expressed wonder at 
seeing so white a woman in that hellish abode. 

The drug began its work, Waylao 's brain became delirious. 
Gin, morphine and innocence mixed together had more en- 
chantment in it than morphine, gin and downright wicked- 
ness I Abduh Allah suddenly shone before her eyes with 
such resplendent beauty that she lifted his hand and kissed 
it before them all. The pock-marked old marabouts 
nudged each other in the ribs and the younger villains 
exchanged glances. A treat was in store for them. 

If Benbow, her father, had entered at that moment, that 
cavern would have experienced the greatest volcanic erup- 
tion of its history. Alas ! Benbow was at sea or in some 
island seaport telling of his past experiences, how he had 
captured pretty girls in the blackbirding days, filled his hold 
up to the brim with that quivering cargo, battened them 
down and then, singing with his wild crew For Those in 
Peril on the Sea (his favourite hymn), put to sea. 

134 



A GLEAM FROM HEAVEN 

Waylao quite forgot her father. Her mother's old 
legendary creed was true after all. Was she not in some 
wonderful underworld, some heathen shadowland ? Were 
not goddesses and god-like men at her feet — ^worshipping 
her ? Her very innocence, her strange, poetic brain, made 
beautiful creations of those abandoned native girls as they 
danced like faery shadows around her. 

It may seem unbelievable, but Waylao, to the call of a 
host of impassioned pleadings, stood on the pae-pae and 
began to dance ; but not as the others. Even those dis- 
solute men gazed intensely, half sobered by the exquisite 
beauty, the rhythmical movements of her perfect figure. 
The winds crept in and stirred her bronzed tresses and their 
crown of vermilion forest flowers : she lifted her robe 
delicately and sang to her shadow in the lagoon at her feet. 
It was a unique sight, a new experience to all in that cave 
as she danced and chanted. What was that faint, ineffable 
glimmer that silently struck the still water ? It was a 
pale light, a streak from heaven, moonlight piercing through 
a chink just overhead in the cavern's rocky roof. That 
faint glimmer streamed upon her mass of entangled hair, 
and lit her eyes with some wild, half-etherealised light. 
As she danced on, it seemed the very poetry, the grace of 
her movements appealed to these better qualities which 
exist in the hearts of even the worst of men. As they 
watched the earnest expression of her face, the cavern 
hollows became silent, except for the twanging of bamboo 
flutes accompanying her wild melody. Those swarthy, 
bearded scoundrels stood like unto awestruck figures of 
carven stone, expressing artistic surprise. The devil in 
them was touched by the magic of beauty in its finest form 
— the girl's innocence. 

Waylao chanted on. The liquor fumes began to work 
to their full extent. With arms outspread, she danced 
along the pae-pae, her head close against the rocky roof. 
Nearer and nearer she glided, step by step, till with a cry 
she reached Abduh Allah's side and swooned into his 
extended arms. 

As soon as the breathless, staring crew recovered from 

135 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

their astonishment, the cavern echoed and re-echoed the 
encore: "Hasan! Kattar rheyrak ! " ("Beautiful! Oh, 
thanks ! ") 

The four grey-bearded marabouts who were squatting 
on the mats of the dais opposite the pae-pae lifted their 
eyes and turbaned heads ; so overcome were they with 
envious admiration that their pointed beards were level 
with the rugged roof as they once again gasped out in 
sombre syllables: "Allah! O Mohammed's beard! Bless 
its growth ! " 

Suddenly realisation flashed through Waylao's brain. 
She stared with fright on the swarthy crowd of uplifted 
faces around her. Ere the men had fathomed the meaning 
of her terror, she had broken away. Like one demented 
she swept by them and, eluding their clutching hands, fled 
out of that cavern, back to the sight of heaven and the 
moonlit seas. 

It is no wish of mine to dwell on the terrors, the abomina- 
tions of that Indian Night Entertainment of Eastern 
Sensualism. All that I am out to tell is of the temptation 
that came to Benbow's daughter. And so I have painted 
to the best of my ability all that is fit to tell of the scene 
and happenings in that harem cave near Tai-o-hae : a scene 
that is common enough in the Indian lines — as they call 
them — in Fiji and other plantation settlements which are 
the glory-holes of emigrant Mohammedanism in the South 
Seas. To this day the missionaries curse those swarthy 
men, who, I have been told, were not true Indians, but a 
mongrel race from the Malay Archipelago. However that 
may be, Abduh had lived in Calcutta, and they were all 
Mohammedans. 

I may as well say and have done with it that Pauline was 
also lured into that cavern of iniquity. She too had crept 
behind that mockery in the shape of man, Abduh, expecting 
to see something that corresponded with her girlish con- 
ception of paradise. I do not wish to dv/ell on all that she 
confessed to me ; suffice it to say that Pauline swiftly saw 
through the veiled curtain that hid the monstrous inclina- 
tions of that human spider and his crew. 

136 



MOHAMMED FOILED 

Thank heaven ! he failed to pounce upon her innocence 
then. She too had Hfted that vile potion to her lips, but 
had shattered the goblet, untouched, in fragments at his 
feet. 

Those swashbucklers at the card-tables, flushed with 
drink and thoughts of the prize that seemed almost in their 
clutches, had also put forth their vile talons to stay her 
flight ; but she was too swift for them as she sped from 
that sensual hollow by the seas, her soul ablaze with fear. 

Such is a portion of the history of those much-admired 
caves and subterranean passages of the Marquesan Group, 
caverns where the tourist doubtless enters to take a snap- 
shot of Nature's transcendent beauty of coral, flowers and 
ferns, little dreaming of the secret they held for the guile 
of men years ago. 

I believe that these caverns were also used as Chinese 
opium dens. The French authorities had issued an edict 
forbidding the traffic in opium because of its demoralising 
influence on the native population. But still the trade 
prospered in secret, natives inhaling the dreamy narcotic, 
from Tai-o-hae to Papeete. The penalty for smugglers 
was a heavy fine, but if the culprit had not the wherewithal 
he was discharged with a caution, for the official exchequer 
was too poor to keep them in the calaboose, which was 
always full of successful aspirants who yearned to live, under 
Government protection, a life of comparative luxury and 
ease. 

It was hinted that the French officials of that time were 
not above accepting bribes in the way of cash and maids, 
for Abduh Allah's harem cave was strangely immune from 
the vigilant eye of the law. 



-^^^7 



CHAPTER XIV 

Waylao Off Colour — Our Trip to Tahiti — Papeete at Night — The 
drowned Native Girl — Her Obsequies — A Humorous Creed 

WAYLAO returned home after her experience in 
that harem mosque with several of her illusions 
slightly damaged. But though the materialisa- 
tion of her dreams did not correspond with the romance of 
her old South Sea novels, she was too infatuated with Abduh 
to break away from him. 

All that I know about the matter, or knew then, is, that 
old Lydia sold me one dozen new-laid eggs next morning. 

" Where's Waylao ? " said I. 

' ' She poor sick girls this longer time ; she lie bed late 
in morning. Nice sun over mountain, allee samee she 
no wake." 

The native woman then told me that Benbow was due 
home from sea in a week or so, and, in native fashion, did 
a little dance to express her delight. 

The same day Grimes and I sailed from Tai-o-hae on a 
short trip. We had secured a berth on a small trading 
schooner bound for Tahiti. I remember that we called in 
at Papeete, stoppmg one day and night. The old capital 
by moonlight looked like some mighty enchanted castle in 
ruins, the starlit vault, for roof, spread like a mighty dome 
inland. Plumed palms and beautiful tropical groves grew 
along its wide floors, which climbed to the rugged mountain 
terraces rising to the blue midnight heavens. Its dimly lit 
streets appeared like faeryland. Dusky figures, robed in 
many-coloured, semi-barbaric materials, flitted beneath 
the moonlit palms, singing songs in a strange tongue. As 
curiosity drew one's steps nearer, it was evident that they 
were handsome feminine figures with luminous eyes, running 
down palm-sheltered streets on soft feet. In the adjoining 
spaces, backed by the first little houses of the native hamlet, 



UNKNOWN SORROW 

danced French sailors, embracing voluptuous girls. They 
looked like puppets as they shuffled their feet and were held 
in the arms of those splendid, semi-savage women. The 
dusky Eves wore flowers in their hair, and as each couple 
whirled gracefully, the French sailor's peaked cap on the 
side of his head, a pungent smell of cognac drifted on the 
zephyrs to our nostrils. 

We heard soft whisperings : " Yoranna, monsoo-aire ! 
[monsieur] Awai ! Awai ! " 

Then came the tinkle of a zither and fiddle, accompanied 
by melodious laughter as the dance proceeded. " Sacre ! " 
hissed some jealous Frenchman as Mira Moe, the belle of 
the ball, went with his pal into the Parisian caf6 just by, 
under the South Sea palms. 

In the morning all had vanished like a dream of faeryland. 
The Broom Road and the scattered white houses on the 
slopes, the busy, gesticulating gendarmes and stalwart, 
tawny hawkers made the scene appear quite a commercial 
centre. 

We were obliged to leave that little Babylon of the South, 
for our boat stopped there only two days, returning straight 
to Nuka Hiva. 

When Grimes and I arrived back at that grog shanty near 
Tai-o-hae, we were enthusiastically welcomed by the shell- 
backs, who thought we had gone away for good. 

Before we had been back many hours a dead native 
girl was found in the lagoon, about half-a-mile from the 
shanty. She had a pretty face, with the hair floating about 
it as we pulled her out of the water. The mouth looked as 
though she was quietly crying to herself though she was 
dead. 

Neither Grimes nor I were used to death in those days. We 
were both very depressed after the incident, though the tribe 
of the drowned girl had a great festival in coimnemoration 
of the sad event. 

At first it struck me as incongruous that they shouM beat 
drums and sing weird himees to the gods who had received 
the ill-fated girl's soul. Those jovial lamentations were in 
striking contrast to the woebegone faces and wails of the 

139 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Christian choirs of natives who attended the tin-roofed 
chapel by Calaboose Hill. I was hired as violinist for the 
burial ceremony of that dead girl. Two Yankee mission- 
aries sang a Te Deum (so they called it). I extemporised 
an ohligato on the violin. It was the world's most woeful 
sight as they opened their mouths and sang some American 
hallelujah — and fifty natives groaned in unison to the 
mournful strain. 

I cannot help thinking that the world's religion should be 
inspired by the soul of laughter. The more sombre a creed 
is, the sadder are those who kneel in true belief at its altar. 
Hypocrisy has become such a fine art that even the hypocrite 
believes earnestly in the hypocrite. It would be more truly 
religious if the personification of a great creed's deity were 
some glorious, Punch-like figure with eyes agog with infinite 
humour — something that represented humanity in some 
universal dance, flitting along arm in arm, in imitation of 
the dancing spheres 1 Think of the glory of temples crammed 
with jolly-faced old men of the priesthood, opening their 
mouths in side-splitting laughter as they sang : " Glory to 
God the Great Unhurried— Glory to the Infinite Humorist, 
the Eternal Grin — the Omniscient Eyes of Eternal Merri- 
ment guiding the song-swept nations ! " Would not such 
an opera houjfe religion and existence be sweeter than the 
pangs of the martyrs and the universal moan that announces 
the hope of salvation ? 

I feel sure such a creed would have met with success in the 
heathen lands and brightened the Southern Seas with happi- 
ness and sincere belief. Just think, reader, of the mournful 
disciples of our creed arriving suddenly in the South Seas, 
and then imagine the arrival of a priesthood of funny old 
Bacchuses, Punch-and-Judy men singing bacchanalian 
songs, dancing up the sea-shores convulsed with laughter ! 
I have deep suspicions that many of the heathen creeds were 
founded on some such idea. When I returned from that 
burial service many of the tribal chiefs were still dancing by 
the grog shanty door, joyously jigging off the fag-end of 
their memorial service for one who had entered the Kingdom 
of Heathenland ! Though the hour was very late, we could 

140 



THE PERFECT CREED 

still see them dancing with happy, semi-heathen maids 
beneath the starlit palms as we sat by the shanty door. 

"Ain't half enjoying themselves !" remarked Grimes. 

"Yes, they're happy enough in their way," said I, as I 
thought of their wooden idols grinning from ear to ear, agape 
with life's subtle joke. I said : " Grimes, I'm sure those 
heathens afford the Almighty more amusement than 
Europeans do." 

" That's so ! " said my comrade, who fell asleep as I 
philosophised. I poked him in the ribs in sheer disgust. 

Then someone twanged a banjo and burst into drunken 
song. "White wings they neveeer grow wearrrry," was 
gurgled out. " Tink-er-ty-pomp — tum-tum-tiddle-te-tum ! 
rrrrrrrrrrrh ! ter-ra-te-rrip ! " went the banjo strings, till 
silence came over the slopes, for it was very late. Even the 
stars were off indoors as the moon rose on the seaward 
horizon. One by one the beachcombers stole back to the 
shore, back to the promontory where lay the derelict hulk. 
Its tattered, arm-like sails seemed to flutter as though with 
delight at our companionship, as we stole down into its 
bowels, once more to sleep and dream. 



141 



CHAPTER XV 

Benbow's Return — The Old Blackbirder at Home — The Broaching 
of the Rum Barrel — A Musical Evening — Benbow and his 
Daughter — Fatherly Discretion 

FOR several days Grimes and I sweated away un- 
loading a schooner that arrived from Papeete with 
stores and lay in Hatiaeu Bay. Being cashless, we 
were obliged to work at times. The heat was terrific. I 
wore white duck pants, a dirty shirt and a native hat made 
out of a banana leaf, and we both looked like sunburnt 
niggers. One night as we crept home along the Broom 
Road, dying for a drink — for we'd been working in the 
schooner's coal hold — -we heard sounds of wild revelry 
issuing from the grog shanty. Waylao's father, Benbow, 
was back in Tai-o-hae ! 

The fun had commenced, and the shellbacks had welcomed 
him home like a lot of expectant, ragged schoolboys. 

Benbow was something of a Captain Kidd. I have kept 
his correct name back, but it will not hurt his posthumous 
reputation to say that he had been one of the old-time 
blackbirders, and he was indeed a wonder, if half of his 
yarns about himself were true. He was a burly, typical 
Britisher, with a big beard of reddish hue, fiery, like his 
temper, and very expressive-looking eyes. 

Though the shellbacks and derelicts of those days con- 
gregated eagerly in that little parlour of his snug homestead, 
they trembled in their sea-boots when he roared at one hint 
of contradiction. Yet a kind word at the critical moment 
made those blue, steely eyes of his soften. He was the 
biggest bluffer I've ever met. 

Benbow gave me twenty dollars to go to his place and 
play the fiddle, so I know all about his idiosyncrasies. I 
think I would have accepted the job if only for the fun of 
the entertainment. That old cottage fairly shook on those 

142 



i 



SHIVER ME TIMBERS ! 

spree nights. Should one rash member of that convivial, 
unshaved troop express doubt of his host's word, the great 
Tai-o-hae gathering became plunged into the deepest gloom. 

It is recorded in the Tai-o-hae annals of beachcomberism 
how the great meeting of shellbacks at a certain date of the 
year had been suddenly dispersed in the very midst of a 
glorious beano. Like the voice of Doom, Benbow had 
yelled forth his fierce invectives. Men still live in those 
parts who can recall how the echoes of the night hills re- 
corded, like some mighty gramophone, the voice of their 
exasperated host. 

" Shiver me timbers ! You doubt me ? By God ! Eh ? 

You doubt me ? You dare, you son of a b nigger ! " 

Then would come the final crash, as, lifting old Lydia's 
family heirloom — a war-club^ — he would strike the rim of the 
mighty keg of rum, the bung of the barrel of fiery liquor 
that had been specially broached to celebrate his return 
home. One more crash and the bung was driven into the 
head. Ere the awestruck, broken-hearted shellbacks rose 
and filed out into the homeless night, they would gaze 
pathetically in silent appeals. Benbow was relentless. 
Out into the night they would go, muttering deadly im- 
precations on the one who had doubted Benbow and so 
brought unutterable sorrow on their heads. 

But often the winds of Fate blew fair, and the cottage in 
the hills trembled with ribald song, as, with his red, bushy 
beard shaking, Benbow sat enthroned in his old arm-chair. 
Behind him the old grandfather clock merrily ticked, as he 
yelled forth some chantey ; 

■' Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, 
Yo !• ho ! ho ! for a bottle of rum ! - ' 

Then would come the chorus from a choir of wrinkled, 
pulsing, groggy throats as those ragged, sunburnt shellbacks 
clinked their rum mugs. Those derelicts would roar forth 
glorious toasts to the glory of the most highest — Benbow — 
as eyes looked into " eyes that spake again, and all went 
merry " in Tai-o-hae. Old Lydia steamed from head to 
feet as she shot to and fro replenishing the rum mugs, 

143 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Father O'Leary would hear "the sounds of revelry by 
night " in the distance, lift his arms to the sky and say : 
" Oh, those white men ! " 

I know it nearly broke the drums of my ears the first 
time Grimes and I responded to the invitation. They sang 
Blow the Man Down that night, and the ancient sea-song 
reminded me of my first voyage on a sailing ship. It is a 
melody that seems to mysteriously express in a few bars 
the true atmosphere of ocean life. As those old shellbacks 
sang it, in their inimitable style, I fancied I saw the old 
wooden ships going down the English Channel when the 
world was young. I saw the old sailors singing that capstan 
song as they toUed. I saw their bearded, crooked-nosed 
faces shine in the moonlight as they climbed aloft, dis- 
appeared among the wide grey canvas sails, and vanished 
in the sky a hundred years ago. 

It was only when the night grew old, when Benbow's 
fist struck the table with indisputable conviction, and all 
the assemblage enthusiastically believed his yarn that their 
songs resembled chaos. 

Some banged mugs on the table, others thumped the 
floor with their sea-boots, as their bearded throats roared 
out the choruses. No barbarian cataclysm of joyous sound 
could outrival that pandemonium of jangled melody. It 
resembled the steam-organ of a circus roundabout with 
the pipes at full blast and out of tune. It seemed that the 
stops, the bassoons, clarionets, double basses, horns, sopranos, 
cymbals, bagpipes, drums, faint tinkles of the banjo and 
weird piston-rods of sound still crashed forth, toiling on in 
some terrible ensemble as the great musical engine broke 
down. 

Ye gods ! it was a pandemonium ! Grimes and I stood 
at the door seeking fresh air that night. We couldn't 
stand it. 

The natives came creeping across the hills. They heard 
that singing from afar. Those awestruck Marquesans looked 
like happy ghosts as they crept beneath the moonlit bread- 
fruit trees and listened. What did they think of it, the 
great white man's barbarian festival ? 

144 



THE BROWN MAN'S MUSIC HALL 

" Go it, allee samee nicee ! " said one great tattooed 
warrior from Anahao when Grimes gave him a bit of tdbak 
(tobacco). 

Once more the roof of Benbow's cottage vibrated as the 
chorus of / owe Ten Shillings to O'' Grady struck the silence 
of those South Sea hills. In the middle of the songs came 
the hubbub of various calls for rum, terrible oaths and 
enthusiastic encores. It sounded like some mighty gramo- 
phonic record coming on telegraph wires through the earth's 
centre, rumbling and humming from far-off civilisation, 
from the other side of the globe, ay, from London town 
itself, as the thousand echoes struck the silent hills of 
heathendom. The native children also flocked across the 
slopes. Standing on their curly heads, they clapped their 
tiny hands, and fairly screamed with ecstatic delight as 
they shouted " Joranna ! " One little dusky beggar, who 
was stone blind, but had ears, wrung his tiny hands, and 
ran round and round under the moonlit coco-palms. I saw 
his little tawny face gleam with joy in the moonlight as 
once again came the thunder of that jovial chorus : 

"■ I owe ten shillings to O' Grady ; 
He thinks he's got a mortgage on my life. 
He calls on me early every morning, 
At night-time sends his wife ! "• 

(Here came tremendous crashes of sea-boots, thumping 

mugs, and shouts of "Go it, you b son of a sea-cook ! " 

Crash ! Thump ! Then a howl of extreme delight as old 
mother Lydia lifted her chemise and danced !) 

"He wants me to pawn the grand piano ! " came the 
second verse, followed by the " Ta ! Ra ! Ra ! Ra ! Ra ! " 

No living musician, no Wagner of wordy mirth could 
describe the expressive thunder of that final " Ta ! Ra ! 
Ra ! Ra ! " 

"It's glorious, Grimes," said I. "Listen to the echoes 
of advancing civilisation, the echoes of the ghostly footfalls 
of the coming tramp of white men, salvation armies, bands 
of hope, the advance guard of the great unwashed ! Hear 
it, Grimes ? It's the sound of the great sign of the London 

K 145 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Cross arriving under the Southern Cross, that cross up there 
inscribed in gold letters across the vault of infinity — the 
oldest cross in existence." 

By this time the natives had commenced to dance on the 
hills. Though they had been converted, they forgot their 
vows and joined in with the white man's hilarity. I saw 
their legs go up in the moonlight ! They looked so happy. 
The very sight of those handsome, tattooed men and fine- 
looking Marquesan girls inspired me. I turned to Grimes 
and rattled off ex tempore : 

" O Grimes, 
They'll come t they'll build a church, stone prison walls ; 
Catch wild men by their huts who dare to sing : 
Erect a gallows. When its trap-door falls 
Civilisation will be in full swing ! 
Maybe, they'll read these lines, my modest pun 
On loveliness and truth beneath the sun. 

They'll say : ' Who wrote such words of unbelief ? 
Some poet wretch, no doubt, they are so neat.' 
Alas ! 'tis true that white men cooked like beef 
Were welcomed in South Seas and found a treat ! " 

I can see Grimes's grin in the moonlight now. The tune 
was fine. Of course I didn't mean it exactly as I sang it. 
Nor is there any need to explain what I really meant. No 
one but a fool would suggest that missionaries and men 
who strive to do their best are not a thousand times better 
than the millions who are not missionaries. 

Dear old Grimes ! Writing in this strain brings back the 
old memories. 

I often dressed him up, lent him a white collar and nice 
clean tie, and very well he looked. It's true that when I took 
him to the Presidential Ball, given by the French com- 
missionaires at Papeete, he got drunk, disgraced me, went 
on his knees before the President's wife, kissed her hand, 
and murmured "Vivy L'lmpc^-ratrice." I must admit she 
was a fascinating creature. He cried afterwards and begged 
my forgiveness. But there ! my memories of the hallowed 
Grimes are too sacred to recall his little failings. 

But to return to the homecoming of Benbow. As I have 

146 



NEMESIS 

said, there was a terrible rumpus when he arrived. He 
came to the grog shanty ere he went up to his home, accom- 
panied by Ken-can, his chief mate, who had a face Hke a 
death's-head and on his Ups a sinister, everlasting grin. 

Ken-can was a mystery, and, God knows, he looked one. 
They even hinted in the shanty that he had once been a 
hangman in Sydney. Be that as it may, no one on earth 
knew why Benbow liked, or even tolerated, that shadow- 
like, silent figure by his side. He seldom spoke, his eyes 
seemed always staring, as though he knew his destiny, and 
moved towards it with a grin. He looked and behaved, for 
all the world, like a peaked-capped, ragged, walking scare- 
crow, watching over old Benbow and striving to frighten off 
his jolly pals. He would stand at the shanty door while 
Benbow drank, waiting like some Nemesis. When Benbow 
was in his homestead, and the shellbacks roared forth their 
songs, that ragged figure would stand before the door, 
staring at the stars. Waylao would run by him half scared 
out of her wits, as if he were a ghost. 

He roused my curiosity, and one night as he stood outside 
the shanty staring up at the heavens I asked him for a 
match, put out my hand to receive it, and lo ! I touched 
nothing — the figure, that sardonic face, had vanished. 

" Rum," you say. Well, perhaps you haven't lived 
near Tai-o-hae. It may have been a joke of Ken-can's ; he 
knew that we discussed him, and called him " that mystery." 
He looked unearthly enough for a joke of any subtle kind. 

Well that night when the beachcombers were sitting in 
Benbow's snug parlour roaring forth song in the good old 
style, while their host was reviving his wonderful tales of 
his good old blackbirding days, Waylao crept out of the 
forest, returning from her tryst. The sounds of that 
rollicking chorus told her that her father was home from sea. 
She was trembling, for she had just crossed the hollows where 
the officials had but a few days before found a dead con- 
vict, an escape with gyves still gripping his cold wrists. 
As the girl approached her home she saw that everlasting 
figure, Ken-can, standing at the door, pointing with his 
finger to the stars. His shadow on the moonlit taro patch 

147 



WINE-BARK SEAS 

by the door was the first hint of his presence to Waylao. 
That shadow stood erect in the moonlight, magnified on 
the mossy slope in front of the brightly lit parlour window. 
Even the bearded faces of the shellbacks, lifting mighty 
shadow rum mugs to their lips, were distinctly visible on 
that little slope outside. 

Waylao crept by Ken-can with her face half averted; 
like a terror-stricken child she rushed by him, entered the 
doorway and nearly fell into her mother's arms. I could 
easily understand Waylao's fright, for I had often felt that 
way myself, in the dark. Old Benbow embraced his 
daughter. His pride at seeing her developed beauty was 
immense. He held her in his arms as he sat there in the 
old chair surrounded by his ragged, impecunious courtiers. 
Old Lydia opened her mouth with astonishment and pride 
as Benbow told of his wonderful deeds. 

Grimes became quite sentimental as he gazed at Waylao : 
it was he who suggested that the crew should arise and 
drink her health. His voice, as he sang beside me, sounded 
quite sweet as he joined in each old English song that the 
wild men of the sea yelled. 

Benbow ordered Waylao out of the room ere he began to 
tell the latest Tahitian love stories. He prided himself 
on being a wise and just parent. "Mates," he said, as he 
gave a knowing wink, " it's best to keep such tales from young 
ears, and so let a girl remain innocent of such ribaldry." 

Grimes and I saw her that night. We were just off home 
to the hulk when she came out of the little room. Grimes 
hiccupped, and gave her a flower, falling forward gallantly 
on one knee and kissing her hand as he presented the innocent 
gift. Waylao looked very pleased, as I held Grimes's arm 
tightly and helped him away, and she waved her hand till 
we got out of sight. When I look back and reflect, I feel 
how much better it would have been for her to have died 
that night, so dark was the morrow and the many morrows 
to come. 

In a week Benbow had sailed away ; he was off to New 
Caledonia. The rum barrel was empty, and the shellbacks 
were blessing his name for all the joy he had brought them. 

14S 



A WISE PARENT 

After that night Grimes and I secured a berth on a tramp 
steamer. We went to Honolulu and to Samoa on a trip 
that lasted three months. 

When we returned things were much about the same. 
Many of the old faces were still there. Some had left and 
had been replaced by others who were as wonderful in their 
way as my former friends. Uncle Sam was delighted to see 
me again. The old Scotsman's face beamed with pride as 
Grimes treated them all to saloon drinks, and Mrs Ranjo 
put on her holiest smile and even blushed at times. Of 
course one must bear in mind that I seldom drank strong 
liquor. I have explained that this one virtue of mine was 
due to a weak stomach. But it was no good offering those 
old shellbacks religious tracts and olive oil to make them 
smile. I wanted to see them happy, and so I had to treat 
them to the juice of the grape : it was the golden key to the 
temples of their dreams. 



149 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Discovery — Waylao's Flight — A South Sea Scandal — I fall in 
with the Fugitive — The Convict Girl — Sorrow and Sympathy — 
What the Tide brought Back — Waylao's Second Escape 

I HARDLY know how to place the following incidents 
as they occurred. Perhaps it will be best to give 
Lydia's account of what had happened in our absence. 

It appeared that Waylao had been feeling sick for several 
weeks, and had become strangely absent-minded. Night 
after night the girl had gone off to get her mother's stores 
and had completely forgotten them. One night Mrs Benbow 
went to bed enraged at her daughter's absence from the 
domestic domicile. In the morning she got up full of 
suspicion, went into the misguided girl's room and found 
Waylao fast asleep. 

" Get up, you lazy hussys ; to tink that I, yours old mothers, 
the descendant of great kinks [kings], should have to feed 
chicken while my lazy daughters lay in beds ! " Saying 
this, the old woman pulled the bed-clothes right off Waylao 
— puff ! As the girl stood before her irate parent attired 
in her night attire, trembling with fear, the native woman 
yelled fiercely : " Where yous go these nights after nights ? 
What yous do ? Now then, tell me ! Your father is far 
at sea, so you tink you does as you likes with mees ! " 

Waylao said nothing. She hung her head and then stared 
through the little lattice window. 

Suddenly the mother said with a startled voice, a voice 
that was shrill with horror : 

" Gods Almighties ! What you been doing ? " This 
horrified shout was immediately followed by the frantic 
woman clutching the Oriental muslin, robe from Waylao's 
trembling figure. 

The unhappy girl still stared, paralysed by the look of 
astonishment and rage on her mother's face. 

^50 



THE CURSE OF EVE 

Old Lydia was speechless. Her eyes rolled as though 
she were in a fit. She opened her mouth wide, then the 
muscular rigidity of her face relaxed, the jaws met together 
with a frightful click. It was a convulsive movement, a 
faint expression of the horror she felt at the discovery of the 
secret — revealed at last. 

For several minutes Benbow's cottage fairly trembled. 
It seemed to Waylao that a flash of lightning came out of 
her mother's eyes, followed by a mighty crash that split 
the universe in twain. The old woman clapped her hands 
together like an idiot, stamped her feet, then poured forth 
volleys of her fiercest invectives. She went mad, danced 
and whirled in a kind of heathen frenzy, leaping forward 
like a puppet, over and over again, to strike that unhappy 
sinner, the wretched victim of passion and romance. 

Finally the demented old woman rushed into the next 
room, clutched hold of the new tea set that she had given 
Waylao on her last birthday, lifted each pretty china article 
above her head, and smashed it to atoms at her feet. 

Like a beautiful, sculptured figure, emblematical of the 
forlorn betrayed, the poor girl still stood, silent, her eyes 
staring like glassy terror, one foot outstretched as though 
to help the better to bear the weight of humanity's pious 
wrath on her guilty head. Old Lydia forgot her own sins 
(she admitted this after) ; she was a Christianised native 
woman ; her daughter had disgraced her. It was terrible. 
The last thread of self-control snapped in that old barbarian's 
brain as with a pious howl she rushed forward and fastened 
her teeth in the wretched girl's arm. 

' ' Who did it ? Who is it ? Tell me, you wicked villains ! " 
she shrieked. 

Waylao stood silent as death, as mother and daughter 
faced each other. Only the old grandfather's clock broke 
the silence of those dreadful minutes, ticking off, as though 
with sorrow, the flight of time. 

" If yous don't tells me the man, I'll kills you ! " shrieked 
the infuriated woman. With the pluck born of resignation, 
the true pluck that is found in most women when the 
supreme moment comes for the test, the girl stared ahead 

151 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

with a look of secret defiance and loyalty to her Indian 
cut-throat. 

Like a big marionette on a stick, the dusky old woman 
jumped up to the low-roofed ceiling three times, then, with 
a howl, rushed into the next room and clutched hold of the 
huge family war-club hanging on the parlour wall. In her 
flurry she tripped over the matting and fell. Scrambling 
to her feet, she rushed back into the bedroom — it was empty. 
In that moment of her mother's absence Waylao had fled. 

The old woman gasped, then rushed out of the cottage 
door, spurred by mingled feelings of hatred and remorse. 

"Wayee! Wayee ! Wheres ares you? Come back! 
Come back ! Tells me all," she shouted. 

The old Marquesan woman stared through the colonnades 
of bread-fruits, and listened. She heard nothing but the low 
cry of the katafa bird, bound seaward, breaking the stillness. 

All that day and the next day the sad old mother searched 
and called in vain. She wandered like one demented to the 
huts of the native villages, calling aloud for Waylao, telling 
every greedy listener of her sorrow. 

The scandal swept with magical rapidity from village to 
village, from shore to shore. Indeed scandal was as rampant 
in the South Seas as in the cities of civilisation. 

The rumour spread and spread, and took on wondrous 
shapes and hideous detail. Some pitied the girl, and cried : 
" What ! Waylao ? Well, I never ! Poor Waylao ! " 

Others cried : " Shame ! Shame ! Oh, the sinful wretch 
to do so ! Kill her ! Kill her ! " 

Old Ranjo tucked his shirt-sleeves up and struck fearsome 
imaginary blows into the air of his saloon bar, blows that his 
heart yearned to inflict on the girl's betrayer. Uncle Sam 
got fearfully drunk. 

The Irishman and Scotsman went into wordy rivalry 
over similar sorrows in their boyhood's memory. The 
reformed harlot from Sydney swooned with sheer disgust 
to think sensuality had existed so near her virtuous home- 
stead. 

The day after Waylao's flight the scandal was raging like 
a violent epidemic among the native and white settlers, for 

152 



SHOCKED VIRTUE 

Waylao's beauty and sweet disposition had won for her the 
love of all the genuine men and women of those parts. 

So much was whispered and exaggerated over the reputa- 
tion of the missing girl that the little native children sat 
by the camp-fires huddled in fright ; they would look awe- 
struck around and behind them, gazing into the forest gloom, 
expecting to see the awful Waylao leap from the shadows 
like a spirit-woman. Old chiefs lifted their hands as they 
discussed, in hushed voices, with their Christianised wives 
the fall of the beautiful half-white woman, and the sub- 
sequent shock to the morals of the semi-heathen villages. 

The great Christianised chiefess, Manaraoa, wailed out, 
" O Mita Savoo ! The devil allee samee good, ee always get 
'is own," then she too lifted the bottle of gin to her lips and 
drank, to drown her grief, her disgust, that a girl should fall 
so low. 

Grimes and I had only just returned from Honolulu when 
we heard of Waylao's flight. We were sitting in the old 
grog shanty counting out our hard-earned money. " We 
shall never make our fortunes at this rate, Grimes," said I, 
as I counted out the dollars. 

" Never mind, pal," said Grimes. " We'll be wealthy 
by and by." 

" Yes," said I, " when it's too late to enjoy life, when we 
only want to sit over the smouldering bonfire of our shat- 
tered dreams and warm our hearts by the pale hearth-fire 
of the distant stars." 

" Blow the stars and yer shattered dreams ! You're alius 
finking everfing is too late. We can be gay old men, can't 
we ? " responded my sensi ble pal. Then he continued : ' ' Look 
at the tharsands of giddy old men in London, a-making 
up for all that didn't 'appen in their 'appy youth." 
Considerably cheered by Grimes's philosophy, we leaned 
back on to the old settee and prepared for an afternoon's 
siesta. 

It was at this moment that Mrs Ranjo dropped a bomb- 
shell of surprise on us. 

" Hi, Mr Violinist, have you heard the latest ? " 

" No," we responded drowsily, hardly looking up, for the 

^53 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

latest was generally some old joke from the prehistoric 
period. 

" Waylao, Benbow's pretty daughter, has got into trouble 
with some beachcomber, you know, got like that." And 
then she added, with her eyebrows raised : " She's bolted 
from home, kicked out by her mother." 

" No ! " was our simultaneous ejaculation. We sat bolt 
upright and stared like two idiots. That exclamation 
expressed the chaos of our thoughts. It was like the erect 
ears and tail of canine astonishment ; we were dumb-struck, 
alert with surprise. 

Grimes went quite ghastly ; he looked sallow beneath his 
bronzed skin. When we had heard all that Mrs Ranjo 
had to say, we went out into the open. 

" Well ! " was all I could utter as the fresh breeze revived 
my thinking power. Grimes for a moment was strangely 
silent, then suddenly started off at full speed from my side ! 
Away he went, his big feet shuffling and stilfing up clouds 
of sand as he raced. 

I looked ahead to see the meaning of it all. There was 
no apparent reason for his racing off like that. I stared 
with astonishment as he reached the coco-palms down by 
the beach, turned right about, and once again, with his 
elbows raised in racing attitude, came flying back to where 
I stood. 

" What's the matter, pal ? " I said. He did not reply at 
first, then he said hoarsely : " Blimey ! fancy 'er a-going 
wrong — that hangel ! " 

For a moment he stared in front of him, then continued ; 
*' Cawn't we foind 'er ? I'm in love with 'er, that's where 
it is ! " 

It was then that I saw that Grimes had run just as an 
animal in pain runs — to relieve his feelings. 

I did not wonder, or take much notice of his wild remarks ; 
for Grimes and I had had many adventures together, so 
that his peculiarities had become quite commonplace to me. 
He was all of a-tremble when I left him. 

That night I went up to see old Lydia, and found the poor 
native woman half demented. She knew me well. I was 

154 



FATHER O'LEARY'S SORROW 

truly sorry for her and all concerned. She wrung her hands 
with grief, cried like a child, reiterating the full account of 
the terrible discovery. With frequent sobs of remorse she 
related each incident, hiding nothing, behaving as though 
it relieved her feelings to unburden her mind. " Mees old 
heathen bitch ! " she wailed, as she beat her flanks with her 
hands. "My pretty Wayee, I send 'er way to the forest. 
Benbow kill mees when he comes 'ome." So did the old 
girl ramble on, uttering a multitude of original phrases that 
expressed genuine grief and despair. 

I took the grieving mother's hand and swore that I would 
do my best to find her daughter and persuade her to return 
home. 

Ere I left that little cottage the old woman flung her 
tawny arms about me, kissed me hysterically, and said : 
"You bewtifool white mans, you no say much, allee samee 
good Clistian man." 

Then I went away under the coco-palms to do as I had 
promised, and see Father O'Leary, and tell him all that the 
poor mother had confided to me. 

I found the old priest at prayers. " My son, I have heard 
all," he said, as he lifted his hands to the sky. I felt sorry 
for him as he lifted his old eyes and said : " My lost sheep, 
my little Waylao." Then to my astonishment he said : 
"Damn ! " 

This mild oath from the earnest ecclesiastic made me feel 
more sorry than ever ; I saw how intense was his sorrow. 

Though I was a Protestant, if anything at all, he took my 
hand and blessed me. To tell the truth, I loved that old 
priest. Though I did not agree with half that he said, I 
admired and respected his sincerity. I feel sure that he 
liked me, notwithstanding that I shocked him so much at 
times that he lifted his hands to the skies and asked God 
to forgive me. But we were pally, that old priest and I, 
and he was so upset that night that he forgot to toll the 
mission bell. 

I am not going to tell all that I did after I left that priest, 
or all I felt. No one confesses their innermost thoughts 
so why should I ? 

155 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

After seeing the priest and old Lydia I went to fulfil an 
engagement, at a high-toned job, to appear at a great social 

gathering as violinist at the Bishop of residence. 

But when I was about half-a-mile from Tai-o-hae I made 
up my mind to let the concert go and hang itself as far as 
I was concerned. I was feeling too sad about everything, 
as I walked along with my violin. 

No pages of romance could outvie what I experienced that 
night in the silence of that tropical loneliness of heathen- 
land. It must have been Fate which drew my footsteps 
to the solitude by the mountains near Tai-o-hae, for I met 
not only Waylao, but another victim of life's drama. 

I was passing down the track that ran beside the mountains, 
a lonely spot, from where one could see the distant ocean 
twinkling in the moonlight and the moth-grey sails of the 
outbound schooners fading out to sea. Not far from where I 
stood was a chasm where the giant bread-fruits still sheltered 
the ancient ruins of the heathen temple Marea, a solemn 
reminder of the great old days. As I stood there alone, 
drinking in the atmosphere of far-off years, a figure suddenly 
emerged from a thicket of bamboos. 

For a moment I could hardly believe my eyes. I had 
inquired and searched at every likely place to find that sad 
fugitive, and lo ! there stood Waylao. 

I wOl not dwell on all that happened, the girl's despair and 
my own feelings as I grasped the clammy hand of that sad 
enigma, that homeless girl of mystery, passion and romance. 

I led her into the shadows of the forest, and she cried 
bitterly as I gave the sympathy she needed so much. 

It seems like a dream in the recalling, the memory of that 
trembling form, the wild look of terror in her eyes as at last 
she realised the true character of the man whom she had 
worshipped. She did not divulge the name of her betrayer, 
nor was it my wish to seek the information. It was all 
beyond recall. One thing was very obvious to me — ^that she 
had been to her betrayer for protection and found that he 
had flown directly he had heard of her plight. I tried my 
best to persuade the misguided girl to return home. 

" Waylao," I said, " I have seen your mother and she has 

156 



I AM WAYLAO'S FRIEND 

begged me to try and find you." But it seemed that either 
she was half demented or that her fear of Benbow and her 
mother made her prefer to roam homeless rather than 
consent, 

" I do not want to live, or if I must live, I do not wish 
to see those I have disgraced again," she murmured between 
her tears. 

I took her hand and tried by the softest words to reassure 
the girl, but it seemed hopeless. Indeed it was only when 
my persuasion brought a terrified look into her eyes, and she 
was on the point of taking to flight, that I led her away into 
the forest. 

By the hollows where grew enormous banyans was a 
little deserted hut, and there I led her. 

"Waylao," I said, "you cannot roam about like this; 
and if you are determined not to return to your people, you 
had better stop here where I can find you." 

Though I was about Waylao's age, I felt considerably 
older. Indeed my experience of the world made me look 
upon her as a child. 

"Waylao," I said, " I wish to be your friend. Will you 
let me help you ? " 

The girl only looked at me earnestly and burst into tears. 
The night was perfectly still. The moon was shining 
brilliantly over the mountains, revealing the distant shore 
and ocean for miles and miles. Like some half -wild creature, 
the stricken girl crouched beside me. But after a while she 
calmed down and even promised to try and listen to my 
advice the next day, for I had arranged to come to that hut, 
to bring food and blankets. 

It was more like some Byronic romance than reality as I 
thought of our strange position and looked at the girl beside 
me. She was robed in a picturesque multi-coloured kimono, 
that she had hastily snatched up, I suppose, in her flight. 
A few flowers were in her hair, that crown of rich, glossy 
splendour, and made her appear wildly beautiful as the 
dishevelled tresses fell about her throat, gleaming white in 
the moonlight. I tried to cheer her up. Taking the violin 
out of the case, I was lifting the bow to play a song that I 

157 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

had heard her sing in the shanty when we heard a voice. 
For a moment I wondered what on earth it could mean, for 
I distinctly heard the strains of sweet singing coming nearer 
and nearer, 

Wajdao clung to me with fright. I immediately reassured 
her, for, looking out through the thickets of wild feis, I saw 
a faery -like being in the distance. I stared in astonishment 
at that sight. I rubbed my eyes to convince myself that I 
did not dream it all ; for there, coming down the forest 
track on weary feet, outlined in the moonlight, came the 
figure of a girl. Even Waylao half forgot her own sorrows 
as she too peeped out of the thickets, watched and listened 
to that wraith of the forest singing the saddest, sweetest 
strain I ever heard. It is some phantom girl of the moun- 
tains, thought I, for in those days I was mad enough to 
believe anything. 

"What can it be, Waylao ? " I whispered as we both 
watched and the melody grew clearer, for the figure was 
coming towards us. As the form approached, it seemed 
to be swaying to the tremulous song that the lips were 
singing in a strange language. It were impossible to describe 
the pathos of it all. It seemed that the poor, weary feet 
of that castaway, that the dilapidated shoes that she wore, 
were shuffling out some terribly sad accompaniment to that 
French song — for that wandering girl of the night was an 
escapee, a convict girl from New Caledonia, a poor fugitive 
who had stowed away on some schooner at the convict 
settlements, risking the horrors of a homeless life in those 
wild South Seas rather than live on linked with criminals. 
She was still clad in her ragged convict clothes, the misery 
of God knows what thoughts shining in her eyes, as she 
tramped the night track by Tai-o-hae. 

Ere I could recover from the wonder that thrilled me the 
convict girl was right opposite our hiding-place. I distinctly 
saw the beautiful outline of her face as the moonlight streamed 
through the branches of the bread-fruits that sheltered the 
track. 

So intensely sad was her face that I instinctively leaned 
forward and stared. In a moment the song ceased. The 

158 



AT SORROW'S ALTAR 

girl had observed me ; she half turned, as if to fly. It must 
have been some expression of my face that made her stay, 
look again and respond half fearfully to my beckoning. 

I think the memory, the pathos of that scene will remain 
with me till I die. 

The escapee's eyes filled with tears as Waylao threw her 
arms about that frail, possibly lately lashed form, for 
Waylao understood more than I did the plight of those 
wretched derelicts who escaped and drifted as stowaways 
across the Pacific from Noumea. Either they came to 
those parts, hunted men — seldom women — or their skeletons 
were discovered in the hold of some ship wherein they had 
hidden their trembling frames too well. 

So did romance come to me in its saddest, most terrible 
form. Nothing, not even the sorrow of Calvary, could outdo 
that tragedy, that picture of man's inhumanity and mighty 
injustice to those in his power. 

With all the impulsiveness of a boy's wild desire to help 
the stricken, to plead for the beauty of romance in woman, 
I knelt at that altar of misery. 

It may sound like a page from a drama that never saw 
the light of day. I only wish it were a fevered dream of the 
brain. But it was real enough, though it certainly sounds 
sufficiently mad to be untrue in this world of inscrutable 
mockery, where man lifts his eyes piously, and where all his 
prayers begin or end with " God have mercy upon me ! " 

God ! I've done glorious mission work in my time. 

We took the poor escapee into the forest depth so that she 
might be safe from the eyes of the gendarmes, the hunters, 
the officials of the calaboose near Tai-o-hae, and she stood 
trembling beside us, beneath those giant bread-fruits. Even 
those old, insensate trees seemed to bend tenderly over that 
hunted convict girl. 

After she bad discovered that we were friends and had 
listened to our sympathy, a beautiful expression, an almost 
indescribable splendour lit up her tearful face. She looked 
like some fallen angel : the earnest stars seemed to shine in 
her eyes as she stood before us, the dirty strip of blue ribbon 
fluttering at her beautiful throat as she wept, and told us 

159 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

all — yes, even the crime of passion which had caused her to 
be exiled from her La Belle France. 

As we listened to her story, we three huddled together in 
that forest, the scents of the damp glooms were stirred by 
the creeping zephyrs, as though the mighty brooding heart 
of Nature was in sympathy with all we heard and with un- 
seen fingers touched us, and sighed the breath from her dead 
forest flowers upon us, as I sat there with those two beautiful 
castaways, one a child of the South, and one from far-away 
civilisation. 

I can still hear the terribly sad music of that voice, as 
in pathetic, broken English she almost sang her sorrow into 
our ears. 

She told us how justice was meted out to her, how fierce, 
relentless men came in the disguise of outraged righteousness, 
seized her and shut her with her remorse in that coffin 
whereon no flowers are placed : nailing a young girl down 
with all her shattered dreams — alive, inside. 

As Waylao and I listened to her story, I imagined that 
girl to be some terrible symbol, some sad, beautiful personi- 
fication of all the castaways of the earth. The very winds 
seemed to shriek triumphantly, as though they still roared 
out the hate of pious men, and coming from the far-off 
cities across the seas, rushed up that shore and shook the 
forest trees violently with pursuing hands. I felt as though 
the world of reality had long since been shattered back into 
its hell by the final cataclysm, the crash of the spheres ; 
that I sat there with the remnant, two beings it had failed 
to crush, but had left behind, gloriously beautiful with 
sorrow, in a new, divine form. As for me, it seemed as 
though I were some great mistake, some man, by a sad mis- 
chance, still left behind on earth, and I sat between them 
listening and hung my head for shame. 

Out of another's sorrow balm came to Waylao : she wept 
not for herself, but for the ragged figure, the blistered feet 
of the derelict beside us. 

O heart of mine ! Is it true that the forest trees brightened 
with ethereal light — that an angel stood weeping in those 
woods — that a stricken phantom girl seemed to step from 

i6o 



MY GREAT SOLO 

the confessional box of that almighty cathedral of giant 
trees and the domed starlit night, her soul renewed with 
glory, her shattered dreams restored by our sympathy ? 

Was it a fallen angel, a phantom of the imagination, that 
came down to us in the forest by Tai-o-hae, sang that French 
hymn to beauty, and, with the stars shining in her flying 
mass of hair, 

Danced as the winds came creeping in 
And I played on the vioHn ! 

Yes, danced, as the mad shadow played and played the 
songs of romance and the waves beat out their warning 
monotones on the beach below. 

Early the next day I hurried back to my two sad fugitives 
in their hut by the sea. Ere I had left them the night 
before I had made them promise not to stray away from 
that spot. 

It would have been better if I had broken my promise 
and gone straight to old Lydia and told her of Waylao's 
whereabouts. But as usual in this funny world, I managed 
to do the wrong thing at exactly the right moment. 

So strange and sad had been the happenings of the previous 
night that I half fancied I had dreamed of Waylao and that 
hut in the forest and the convict girl. That morning I 
went to Mrs Ranjo and got her to lend me two blankets. 
" I've got an awful chill on the lungs," I wailed plaintively, 
in order to satisfy the bar-woman's curiosity, and departed 
for the forest with a parcel of dainty things. 

When I arrived at that little hut by the mountains, there 
they still were, huddled together, sisters of grief in each 
other's arms. It is hard to know, even now, which was 
the greatest sinner — -Mohammed in the South Seas, or 
" Christianity's " strange justice in the civilised world. 

I still recall the earnest eyes of that grateful convict girl 
as I crept into that little shelter. 

Ah, God ! it's hard to have been a missionary at the altar 
of romance and beauty, to have reaped so little reward for 
so much sorrow. The milk of human kindness is indeed 

L i6i 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

diluted and hard to digest. That same night Waylao and 
I listened to the wretched escapee's story. She told us why 
she had been transported for life, but it is too sad a tale to 
tell here. She was a Parisian girl of superior family, and had 
suffered for twelve months in the galleys and in the hideous 
chain gangs of Noumea ere she escaped. She had stowed 
away in the hold of a small schooner that called with stores 
at Noumea. Friendly sailors had connived to let her slip 
ashore unperceived at Nuka Hiva a few days before Waylao 
and I met her. 

As we sat under the trees of that forest near Tai-o-hae, 
she seemed still to be a being from another world. Our 
sympathy, which she had probably never thought to find 
again on earth, inspired her with a new, half-etherealised 
existence. Strange as it may appear to the marble-like 
human beings of the great, polite world, she sang to us, 
swaying like to some faery creature as I played to her on 
my violin. Ah ! what a soloist I've been ! Who has had 
such fame, such success as I ? What an audience was mine 
— when I played to immortality, to those earnest eyes, to 
those sad lips singing magical French songs to us, I think 
God must have composed the melodies we three sang to- 
gether in those wide halls before the footlight of the stars, 
over the seas, years ago. 

The native drums had already beaten the last stars in as 
I sat there in deep thought, pondering over it all, wondering 
what was the best thing to do for that poor derelict's sake. 
As Waylao wept on, the lost escapee rose as though restless, 
as though she wished to leave us. Her restlessness had 
already worried me, for it was not the first time she 
had intimated that she must leave us. Indeed Waylao had 
almost promised me that she would return home for that 
derelict girl's sake. For I must confess that I had traded 
on the miraculous appearance of that fugitive, and had 
sought to make her the instrument to serve two purposes. 

" Waylao," I said, " if you return to your mother, we can, 
with each other's help, hide this poor castaway till such 
time as we can help her to get to a safer retreat." At this 
Waylao had listened earnestly and, for the sake of the French 

162 



LIFE'S EBBING TIDE 

convict girl, promised to go home. I was delighted at the 
way things were working, till that French girl rose and 
intimated that she must go away. 

" Why go ? We will look after you," we said appealingly. 

I even told her that I would try and get her a passage 
back to the colonies, so that she could once more get back 
to France. 

She shook her head. She must never, never go back to 
the West ; but must ever wander, lost, exiled, with her face 
turned to the South, hopeless, forgotten by all. 

Waylao threw her arms about the girl, imploring her not 
to leave her. When they had wept a little while together, 
the convict girl gave us to understand that she wished to 
be left alone with her God for a while. We were strangely 
impressed by the earnestness of her manner. Her eyes 
had an indescribable look of beauty in them. The smile 
on her mouth almost brought the tears to my eyes. I no 
longer sought to look for meanings of anything. I sat there 
like one in a dream, as though I were doing my part on some 
unknown stage where some mysterious drama was being 
enacted. 

"Mon dieu ! I will come back to you again, sister," 
she whispered in broken English as Waylao kissed her. 
She went down the little track that led to the shore. We 
saw her turn and wave her hand as she turned round by the 
buttressed banyans and then disappeared. 

Waylao and I waited together. As the wind came in 
from the sea and wailed in the giant bread-fruits overhead, 
we felt strangely unhappy. At last I listened to Waylao, 
whose instincts were stronger than mine in fathoming the 
ways of her sex. I had already given up any idea of my 
returning to Tai-o-hae. I determined to stay with Waylao 
till her new-found comrade returned. We must have 
walked up and down that track and along the shore for hours 
searching, and even calling, in hopes that the fugitive would 
hear us and return. It was only when Waylao was almost 
dropping with exhaustion that I returned to the hut in the 
forest. Again we sat and still waited for the return of the 
girl who had strangely gripped us by the very heart-strings. 

163 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

I made a soft bed of moss and dead weeds for the homeless 
girl beside me. She lay down, and ere I had spread the 
blanket over her figure she had fallen into a deep sleep of 
exhaustion. Then I crept away down to the shore to smoke 
and with the hope of discovering our lost companion. 

Ah, God ! Dawn came stealing in, like hushed grey wings 
sending the stars home before their wide, silent sweep. Ere 
the first burnished flame of the sun touched the horizon 
the blue lagoons of the shores sprang into view. Scarcely 
a ripple stirred the deep waters of the Pacific as they heaved, 
dark and immense, like some mighty, troubled tomb, ere it 
gave up its dead. 

Then her body came in on the tide, lifting and falling 
with the swell. Even the tropic birds seemed to give a low 
cry of sorrow as they swept away over the hushed waters. 
Just as the poets might say — her beautiful hair floated like 
a glinting mass of softest seaweed. It might have been a 
sleeping mermaid floating shoreward. Not in all the world 
of romance and reality could one imagine a sight to outrival 
the pathos, the ineffable sorrow of that castaway returning 
to the shores of earth— on the incoming tide. I can still 
see the South Sea chestnut-trees and the leaning bread- 
fruits as they stretched their tasselled, twining arms over 
that blue lagoon. The mirroring water shone like purest 
glass above the multi-coloured corals of the still depths. 
On she came. The blue strip of ribbon was still at her 
throat, like some weeping symbol, a tiny flag that had 
once fluttered on the visionary turrets of the enchanted castle 
of a girl's dreams. There it hung, limp as the hands that 
had tied it there, after all the faeries had flown back to the 
stars. As she reclined on the surface of those deep, clear 
waters, her shadow was perfectly outlined, and her sleeping 
face sideways on her hanging arm distinctly visible beneath 
her. Even the strip of ribbon was imaged, and fluttered 
once again as the little starfish sailed right through it. 

The light of man's cruelty, the hopelessness of all the 
creeds, shone in hei dead eyes. 

So died the convict girl. Sympathy had made her brave. 
She had regained belief in the goodness of things, recaptured, 

164 



THE INCOMING TIDE 

out of misery, the lost faith of her childhood ; fearlessly- 
risked her all — gone before One who would not judge as 
men judge, or condemn the clay of His own fashioning. 

They buried her by Calaboose Hill, in the hidden cemetery 
of the forest depth, where lay old Marquesan chiefs and the 
home-sick white men. And I, irreligious wretch that I am, 
went to that hallowed spot, leaned over the dead escapee 
and placed a little cross on the grave. 

After that terrible discovery I returned to Waylao, hardly 
conscious of what I should say. For a while I managed to 
keep the sorrow of it from her. She saw by my manner that 
something terrible had occurred; indeed she half guessed 
the truth before I told her anything. Her grief was terrible. 
I did my best to console the poor girl. 

" Waylao," I said, " it is no good grieving ; she has gone 
from all the sorrow of this world ; and but for this little bit 
of ribbon we might well imagine that such a being never 
existed, never drifted out of the stars, and then, leaving these 
dilapidated shoes behind, escaped from the clutches of the 
convict officials." 

Taking her hand as tenderly as a brother might take the 
hand of an erring sister, I said : " Waylao, come away home 
to your people. I have been to Father O'Leary and he 
wants to see you." Then I told her once more of her 
mother's grief over her flight, of all the kind things that 
people had said about her — for I, too, can be a holy liar — 
and I took her away over the hills. She was strangely silent 
as she walked beside me. 

" I don't want to go back, I cannot," she said when we 
were within sight of the township. I did not dream of the 
true state of her mind. All that she had gone through, and 
the sudden loss of her new-made friend in her sorrow, had 
evidently unhinged her mind, for I never saw any woman 
run like she did. We were just passing by a clump of 
bread-fruits that stretched into the deeper forest by 
Tai-o-hae when I looked up and saw her bolting. 

Recovering from my astonishment, I started off in pursuit. 
She was light of frame and foot, and so easily outpaced me. 

I was more upset at this turn of affairs than I would like 

165 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

to confess. When I got back to the old hulk I was sweating 
and exhausted through my hopeless search. T thought it 
best to say nothing to anyone except Father O'Leary of 
what had happened. To tell the truth, I began to wonder 
what construction might be put on my unconventional 
interest in Waylao's plight. I suppose, even now, old 
Mother Grundy will have her private opinion, but what care 
I, safe out here in the solitude of Savaii Isles ! I wonder 
what she would think of my next chance meeting with the 
half-caste girl. Yes, we met again some time later, and 
in the most miraculous way — far out at sea. But there's 
a good deal to tell before I reach that episode. 



l66 



CHAPTER XVII 

A Pacific Storm — A Glimpse of Pauline — Waylao on the Hulk — Her 
Many Fathers— Grimes's Unuttered Proposal — A Serenading 
Fiasco — H ermionse 

TWO days after I had lost sight of Waylao I was 
sitting in the shadows of the banyans near the 
Broom Road. Grimes was laid up in the hulk with 
a sprained ankle, through some wild spree in the grog shanty. 
I had been that day to Father O'Leary and told him my 
experiences. The old priest was terribly upset, but we were 
both hoping that Waylao might eventually turn up. 

It had been a wild night. A storm had swept the Pacific 
Ocean into an infinite expanse of flaming foam. Earth, air 
and sea had become, for a while, a mighty harp for the passions 
of the elements to play upon, while the great mountain peaks 
caught the vast cloud wracks flying beneath the moon on 
their pinnacles. Each moment I saw those mists tossed into 
glorious silvered waves of multitudinous shapes, as they broke 
away and, like raging phantom seas, rolled across the sky. 

There was no rain. Only the wild song of the pines and 
bread-fruits on the ranges were singing to the storm. Then 
the distant ocean ceased its wild tumbling, the passion of 
the winds died away, the long-drawn thunder of the seas 
on the shore reefs decreased, and only after wide intervals 
came the moan of those ramping shore chargers. The 
landscape of forest and mountain scene appeared like some 
mystical shadow-land as the visionary light of the con- 
stellations shone again across infinity. I recall the creeping 
natives moving along like dusky ghosts after the storm, 
only their shaggy heads dripping wet with the heavy, 
silvered rains of brilliant moonlight that fell glimpsing 
through the palms. 

Again I fancy I hear them singing their legendary songs, 
strains of wild music telling of the dark ages, I see them 

167 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

sitting or dancing by their huts, embrace and whirl away, 
vanish in the shadows Hke the phantoms of some far-off, 
forgotten world. 

Such are my memories of the night when Pauline came 
to me out of the shadows. I had wandered back to the 
vicinity of the grog shanty. As I stood smoking, and in 
deep reflection, I saw two figures pass out of the shanty's 
saloon door ; away they went staggering along the same 
old track, bound for that lonely habitation by the moun- 
tains — it was John L and his everlasting dodging pal. 

Pauline's father was quite drunk. I could hear his wailing 
voice singing some English song till the musical groans faded 
right away up in the hills. 

Then she came, Pauline, the white girl. Her eyes were 
shining with fear as she hovered by the shanty door. Those 
shellbacks and all the types of derelicts were singing their 
wildest songs as she listened for her father's voice. 

So beautiful did she appear to me as we met each other 
beneath the palms that I half fancied she might be some 
spiritual creation treading the mossy earth. 

I had seen her before, but that did not destroy the im- 
pression she made. I suppose I had a fit of my old insanity 
upon me. It may have been the full moon, or hereditary 
taint, the strain of some mad ancestor. Anyway every- 
thing appeared beautiful to me ; even the roughest of men 
seemed to have shining eyes from which gleamed a glory of 
divinity, in strange disguise, expressing some hidden poetry 
of the universe. 

I was playing my violin when she came, and still played 
on as she stepped out of the bamboo thickets. Standing 
there in the shadows before me, she seemed as ethereal as 
the vision of my figurehead. 

I trembled from head to foot. She looked up and said : 
"How beautiful!" 

I had once hoped to outrival Paganini and make men stare 
with wonder as I played before them. I had hoped to do 
fine things, but never in all the glorious fervour of imagina- 
tive ambition had I dreamed of such a tremendous success 
as the praise of those lips. 

i68 



MY GREATEST COMPOSITION 

I looked into those clear, earnest eyes ; they were as blue 
as the tropic midnight sky — and as expressive. 

For a moment I could not speak. Then she said : " What 
is the name of the piece you have just played ? " 

I felt embarrassed. Even as she spoke I heard in the 
distance the rollicking songs and the shanty oaths to which 
I had become so accustomed. 

As I looked up into the eyes of that girl, her wind-blown 
hair fluttering into thick tresses that fell about her shoulders, 
I recovered my mental faculties and responded : 

" The piece that I have just played is called — Pauline ! " 

For a moment she stared at me. I was brave enough at 
times and I gazed back defiantly. I knew I had a right 
to call my improvisations by any name that I chose. 

At first she responded with a smile that thrilled me. 
Then her pretty mouth rippled into laughter. 

" That is my name," she said. 

" I know it is," I replied. 

I began to tremble. I cursed my shabby suit ; only the 
brass buttons told of better days. My soul cried within 
me. I yearned to be attired in such a material as God has 
fashioned for his angels. I felt that I was some earthy, 
soddened being, one not even fitted to play a violin to so 
ethereal a creature. 

And what happened then — well, that which usually 
happens when all that we yearn for seems to be within our 
grasp — she flitted away into the shadows, away back to her 
enchanted castle in the mountains. I did not see Pauline 
for many a weary day after that. In the ordinary course 
of things that happen on man's inky ways, she should from 
this point keep slipping into my pages with delightful con- 
tinuity. But, alas ! I am only telling the facts of the case. 

About two days after the foregoing events Uncle Sam, 
Grimes and a few more impecunious gentlemen were walking 
along the beach near the Broom Road when suddenly the 
old American said: "Hello! What's that?" There in 
the shade of the bamboos, right in front of their eyes, 
stood Waylao. 

169 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Hello, girlie," said Uncle Sam. " Waal, I reckon you've 
run across the right sort." 

The old Yankee's voice was thick with emotion as he 
stared at the trembling girl. 

" Come here, gal ; you look ill. What 'ave they been doing 
to you ? Not 'elping yer in trouble, I knows, eh ? " 

The concerned gaze on the rough face before her and the 
note of kindness in the voice was too much for Waylao — 
she burst into tears. 

" Oh, take me away, hide me," she wailed. 

Uncle Sam took the girl by the hand and led her away. 

"I'll be 'sponsible for yer," said the old American. 

Grimes chewed the end of his clay pipe right off ; it fell 
at his feet as he lifted his eyes to the sky and murmured : 
" My gawd ! ain't she bewtifool ! Fancy the loikes of 'er 
a- wandering about wifout frens ! " 

That same night Waylao sat hidden in the old hulk by 
the promontory, the crowd of beachcombers around her. 
That hulk in the moonlight, with its rotting figurehead 
appealing to the sky-line, might have appeared to a stranger 
the most isolated spot in the South Seas. But a pathetic 
human drama was being enacted in the bowels of that 
derelict. 

I wish I had had a camera in those days. A photograph 
of those shellbacks sitting on their barrels round that forlorn 
girl would have been worth its weight in gold. 

She looked like some trapped faery creature as she sat 
there dimly outlined in the gloom, with glimpses of moon- 
light, through the broken deck roof, flitting about the folds 
of her mass of glorious hair. One would hardly believe the 
way those rough men looked after that girl, or the tender- 
ness of their private comments. One went off to the stores 
of the township and purchased, on tick, the most delicate 
articles of food. Uncle Sam made her swallow a tiny drop 
of whisky. " It won't 'urt yer, gal — that's it, that's it," he 
said when Waylao at last sipped it. The spirit pulled her 
together ; she even smiled when the old shellback made his 
antiquated jokes for her special benefit. 
That night the crew prepared a bed for her at the far end 

170 



THE HEARTS OF THE WICKED 

of the derelict's hold. Each hand was eager to add to her 
comfort. They piled up the tubs and rubbish till a wall 
divided her chamber from the rest of them. 

"Here's my coat," said one. Another lent a faithful 
ragged overcoat of many years, so green that it looked as 
though it were growing moss ; some even gave their clean 
shirts. Bill Grimes rushed ashore and gathered a heap 
of soft, sweet-scented seaweed. This made an excellent 
mattress. 

When at length the bed was ready, it was quite a 
sumptuous pile ; not a man but eyed it with approval, and 
felt that he had done his bit, and when eventually she lay 
down, one by one leaned over the improvised bed and tucked 
her in. They looked so proud and pleased that one would 
have thought each man was her father. The night was 
terrifically hot, so their efforts to add to her comfort only 
succeeded in making Waylao perspire. But nevertheless 
such was her gratitude that she smiled through her 
misery when the jovial, generous Irishman placed two 
more overcoats on her and, still half worried, said : "There 
you are, missy ; begorra, you won't be cold now, will 
you ? " 

They all crept away to the far end of the hold, and instead 
of sitting and yarning and using their wonderful oaths as 
usual, they sat smoking, deep in thought. I say wonderful 
oaths, because they were connoisseurs in such matters. As 
a dog's wagging tail expresses more truth and gratitude 
than all hxmian language, so those oaths expressed the true 
depth of their feelings. 

Next morning Ranjo missed his rough customers : they 
were hidden from the blazing sun, all down in the hulk's 
gloomy depth. There they sat on their old barrels, holding 
a solemn council as to what was best to be done about the 
girl who had sought their protection. 

Uncle Sam pulled his whiskers. The rays of sunlight 
streaming through the port-hole just above his head revealed 
his worried face and the grizzled physiognomies of the sun- 
burnt men grouped about him. 

"I vote that we make her our valet de chambre," said 

171 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

the Dude, who had arrived at Nuka Hiva six months before 
with a bullet-hole in his coat-tails. 

"What ! " ejaculated twenty deep bass voices. 

" I reckon you wants to send the lot of us to hell," said 
another, who spat through the port-hole with wonderful 
precision and disgust as he continued : "What would old 
Benbow say if he heard we'd had his daughter down here, 
with coves like us ? " 

" Why, bless me soul," said another, as he swiftly spat and 
crossed his comrade's last stream of tobacco juice on its 
way through the port-hole, " Benbow would say that one 
of us " (here he lowered his voice and looked in the direction 
of Waylao's chamber) " was the father of the kid. Where'd 
be the sprees when Benbow returned from his next voyage ? 
No more rum, I'll bet, eh ? " 

"You're about right, I reckon," murmured the young 
sailors who were busy in the corner making tobacco-pouches 
out of the tough skin of an albatross's feet. 

The Dude from the London Stock Exchange said : " What 
a fuss to make over a girl being in the family way." 
Then he went on carefully cutting out a new pair of 
paper cuffs, which he always wore to impress the skippers 
of the outgoing schooners, who might give him a passage 
to the "no-extradition" colonies of South America — on 
tick. 

Bill Grimes put his spoke in and capped the lot. Looking 
up at the rows of grim faces, he gave a little embarrassed 
cough, then said : "It's my way of finking that the gal 
oughter git married to some 'onourable cove who would 
look after 'er, make 'er 'appy." Rubbing his scrubby 
chin fiercely, he continued : " Gawd ! ain't she 'andsome ! " 

As he hitched his checked trousers up, Uncle Sam and all 
the other rough scoundrels turned their heads and stared at 
him in perfect silence for about three minutes — a silence 
that spoke more than a thousand words. 

Grimes met the steadfast gaze with a glance of defiance. 
Chinese Billy (a bilious-looking Scotsman) said: "Weel, I 
didna ken to live to sae this day, Bill Grames ; here's sax- 
pence, get ye ashore, ha'e a whuskey. Ye'll ne'er earyn the 

172 



«! 



GRIMES THINKS OF MARRIAGE 

price o' a shave for that ugly mug, let alane enough to 
keep a bonny lass like her ! " 

At this moment Uncle Sam nudged the man who was just 
clearing his throat, with delight, to make a speech, for he 
had once been a stump socialistic lecturer. God knows 
what he was about to say ; but I don't think much golden 
wisdom was lost through that interruption. 

Waylao was awake ; she stood at the far end of the hold 
staring at us all. 

It was a real treat to see the politeness of those scallawags ; 
some even reddened slightly as she appeared before them. 
The Dude made his cuffs conspicuous, pulled them down 
half-an-inch, put his hand to his mouth and gave the old, 
artful, conventional cough to the girl. 

With the appearance of Waylao the men all rose and, one 
by one ascending the iron ladder that led to the deck, went 
ashore. 

Uncle Sam stayed behind for a while with Waylao. He 
did his level best to persuade her to go home. The old 
shellback spoke like a grandfather to her. I think she 
promised to go home that night, but asked to be left to 
herself that day, on the hulk. Whatever she promised was 
not fulfilled, for no one saw her on that hulk again except- 
ing Grimes. Even Grimes wouldn't have seen her, but for 
the fact that he returned to the hulk in the daytime. He 
lingered about for some time ere he went aboard and faced 
Waylao. This he told me with his own lips when I returned 
that night from a visit that I had been compelled to pay to 
those whom I had disappointed on the night of my violin 
engagement. 

It appeared that Grimes heard the girl singing to herself 
as he approached the derelict. He had contemplated going 
straight aboard to make Waylao an offer of marriage. 

As near as I can recall, the following is what he had 
intended saying : — 

"I'm Bill Grimes, a nonnest man ; I knows just 'ow 
fings is wif yer ; so I've come to awsk yer if yer'U marry the 
loikes of me." 

Grimes nearly sobbed as I pressed his hand that night. 

173 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

We both felt wretched enough by that time, for Waylao 
had disappeared ere sunset, and when old Lydia came 
rushing down to the hulk to see her daughter, she was too 
late. 

It was only after several whiskies that Grimes coniided in 
me that he had gone on to the hulk and interviewed Waylao ; 
but when he faced the girl his heart failed him, and instead 
of rattling off the choice bits that he had inwardly rehearsed, 
God knows how earnestly, he only had the pluck to offer 
her all the wages that he had saved. 

" Did she take it. Grimes ? " said I. 

"Not at first ; but I made her take it, you bet," said that 
sinful worthy. 

I could sympathise with old Grimes, for, to tell the truth, 
he was not the only one in love. I myself was haunted by 
the memory of Pauline. As I lay in slumber in that old 
hulk's depth, she crept down into silent gloom and scanned 
each grizzled face till she came to my bimk. I felt her 
shadow arms about me. I clasped her and kissed her lips 
in the glorious ecstasy of dream possession. Those dreams 
haunted me through the day. I felt that I could not seek a 
berth on the ships. 

I even went so far as to go to that hamlet by the moun- 
tains, hoping that I should come across her, and became so 
romantic that I even tried to emulate the amorous pro- 
gramme of old-time Spanish hidalgos, and crept away from 
my comrades one night with my violin to serenade Pauline 
by moonlight. 

I put my whole soul into my playing as I stood beneath 
the palms outside that little white-walled bungalow and 
watched her window. I had but a vague notion of what I 
expected : perhaps I imagined that a visionary creature would 
open that little lattice and gaze upon me with ecstatic rapture. 
It might have come off, too, but for the curse of reality. 
Alas ! that the world is so commonplace nowadays. And I 
shall never forget the sudden chill that crushed my hopes 
when old John L — — rushed out of that little door in his 
night attire. 

We almost came to blows as he expostulated about the 

174 



HERMION^ 

d d row I was making while he tried to sleep after a 

bad spell of two weeks' insomnia. And when I told him 
I had the same right to play the violin as he had to get drunk, 
he struck out. 

Well, anyway, such was the result of my South Sea 
serenading adventure. 

And the cruel disillusionment of it made me decide to 
accept a berth on an outgoing boat. It so happened that 
the Sea Swallow was off in a few days, bound for Fiji. I 
knew the skipper well — ^we had sailed together before. He 
was a fiddle-player also, and had taken a liking to me. I 
went on board, signed on for the trip, and felt easier in my 
mind once the decision was made. In the few days that 
remained before the Sea Swallow sailed I wandered about 
a good deal. Grimes stuck to me like a leech. He, too, 
tried to get a berth on the boat, but they were full up. We 
walked miles in search of Waylao, but in vain. I even began 
to wonder if she might not have followed the poor ex-convict 
girl's example. 

Grimes was very despondent about my leaving him. We 
seemed to be full up with sorrow, for we had just heard that 
Hermionae, our Marquesan chum, was dead. 

I see by my log-book that Hermionae died on 4th September, 
the day after my birthday, and that I shipped on the Sea 
Swallow on the 5th. 

But I must tell you about Hermionae. He was about 
eighteen years of age, straight as a coco-palm, and as graceful 
as a young god. I never saw such fine eyes as he had, full 
of fire and yet tender as a girl's. 

A few days before Grimes and I had dressed him up in 
European clothes, for it was his ambition to wear a white 
collar and trousers. I fastened an old india-rubber collar 
round his full throat with much difficulty. "Keep still, 
will you ! " I had to keep yelling as he tried to stop 
dancing with delight at having that white ring round his 
terra-cotta throat. When he was finally dressed up and 
I added an old silver watch and a brass chain to his 
equipment, his handsome face was flushed with joy and 
excitement. 

175 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Joranna ! me love you ! " he shouted as he gambolled 
like a puppy on the slope. 

" You great white man now, Hermionae," said I. He 
rushed off and looked into the clear water of the lagoon, and 
nearly swooned with joy as he sighted his checked trousers ! 

" Me marry nice white womans ? " was his first ambitious 
comment. 

" Well, yes," said I dubiously. 

" But you no got money, Hermionai," I continued, looking 
at his handsome face. But he was so infinitely more attrac- 
tive than some of the pimply, dough-faced beings that 
women have to marry that I added : " Hermionae, you go 
England, great English whyniees [ladies] fall at your feet." 

" Ah, but all white papalagi married, eh ? " 

" Yes, most of them, Hermionse ; but you never mind, 
you be ' Don Juan.' " 

"What Don Joo-an ? ' he responded, opening his fine 
eyes wide. 

Then I explained: "You be great Marquesan chief, all 
ladies look at you and say : ' O handsome Hermionae, we 
love you, we love you ! How beautiful you are ! ' Then 
you fall into their arms, kiss them like this." 

Here Grimes and I embraced, and showed him exactly 
how to do it. 

He screamed with delight, like a big child. Grimes and I 
nearly burst with laughter as he mimicked the scenes he 
pictured. Like all Marquesans, he was alert, and swift of 
comprehension, and extremely imaginative. 

" Love me ? Fall at my feet ? Hubbie jealous ? White 
womans love me ? Me love wife when white man no 
look ? " 

I nodded my head rapidly to each vivacious interrogation. 

Then he continued: "Me kiss beautiful white womans, 
and great white chiefs all come running after me like this." 
Here he imitated all that he saw in his imagination, as fat 
white men ran after him, while he bolted with their wives 
and daughters up the great English Broom Road.^ 

1 The coast roads in Nuka Hiva and in Papeete, Tahiti, are called 
the Broom Road. 

176 



HERMION^ LONGS FOR DEATH 

I could write several chapters about Hermionse, his faith- 
fulness, his quaint ways and fascinating sins. 

The last I saw of him was two days after I had dressed 
him up in our old clothes, and he had swaggered about in 
that incongruous attire. Then he did as he had promised — 
brought all the clothes back. I felt sorry for him as, with 
his head hanging in sorrow, he walked majestically away, 
leaving his late greatness behind him. 

Ere he was out of sight I missed something. ' ' Hermionas, ' ' 
I yelled. But he was fleet of foot. It was too late. 

Next day I met him. " Hermionae," said I, " you believe 
in great white God ? " 

" Master, I believes in great Gods of white mans. I no tell 
story, or steals anything that no belonga me. Me heathen, 
but aJlee samee good Marquesan boy." 

"Hermionse," I said sternly, "I have not yet said that 
you have stolen anything ; but, anyhow, where 's that watch 
of mine ? I missed it out of the pocket of the checked 
trousers, though you swore that you had placed it there." 
I put on my most ferocious look as I proceeded : "Is this 
the way that you would thank a white man who has lent 
you his suit ? " 

He hung his head with shame, avoiding my steadfast gaze. 

" I no see watch, master. Someone steal your watch and 
you blame poor Hermionae." 

As he stood there in tears before me, I looked at his 
magnificent form. His tawny figure was shining as with 
the wonderful varnish of a thousand-guinea Stradivarius 
violin. About his loins was swathed the decorated, silken 
tappa sash tied into a fascinating bow at the right hip. I 
could not be angry with him, so I said softly and sorrow- 
fully ; " Hermionse, what is that bright object that I 
perceive distinctly peeping, hidden just under that pretty 
sash bow at your hip ? " 

He looked at me for a moment with an interrogating, 
appealing glance, then slowly withdrew the watch from 
beneath the silken knot. 

"Hermionse," I said, " it's no wish of mine that you should 
fall dead and go to the white man's hell ; neither is it godly 

M 177 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

for you to have such a wish. True enough, you have sinned 
in a most perfidious way ; but others have sinned as you 
have sinned. It has even been recorded in the history of 
the white races that a watch leads many into grievous 
temptation." 

It was no use. Hermionse was inconsolable. He still 
moaned on and beat his bronzed chest as the tears fell 
upon it. Nothing that I could say could alter his opinion 
but that to have rewarded my kindness to him by such 
perfidy merited no less punishment than death. 

For a moment, as he wailed on, I gazed steadfastly upon 
him. Then I said : "Hermionae, here's the watch, I give it 
you — live on." 

For a moment he held the watch in his hand as though 
stupefied, still sobbing mechanically as his head hung with 
shame. Then, as he lifted it and heard the tick, tick, it 
seemed too much for him : still weeping, he turned a somer- 
sault and commenced to dance with delight. 

Three days after that Grimes and I went to his funeral, 
and it may be imagined how upset we were. His canoe 
had upset in the bay and poor Hermionse had been killed 
by a shark. 



178 



CHAPTER XVIII 

A Flattering Send-ofi — The Ghost of the Sea Swallow — The 
Ghost as Passenger — The True Romance — Arrival at the Fiji 
Isles — Great-hearted SaUormen 

REFERRING to my diary notes, I see that the Sea 
Swallow was due to sail on the 6th September, 
but did not sail till the 7th. This gave me one 
day more in Nuka Hiva. I remember how delighted Grimes 
was to see me appear in the shanty the morning after I was 
supposed to have sailed. We spent the day visiting old 
friends, including Lydia, and did our best to cheer her up. 
She kept wailing out : " Benbows kills me when 'e comes 
'ome from sea and find I send Wayee into forest in temper- 
fit." 

"Don't you worry, she'll come back soon," said I sooth- 
ingly, though I must admit that I had my misgivings, 
which proved only too true. 

I went alone to see Father O'Leary. The old priest took 
my hand and blessed me, wishing me all kinds of luck, and 
I felt quite affected by his fatherly manner. Next day the 
Sea Swallow sailed. I had a mind to persuade Grimes to 
stow away when he bade me good-bye. His big, scrubby 
face looked very serious as he said : " You're a-coming back 
with the boat, I s'pose ? " 

"Yes, Grimes, you'll see me again, don't you fret," I 
replied. 

The impecunious beach fraternity gave me a hearty 
send-off. Uncle Sam, the Dude, the jockey, O'Hara, the 
jovial Scot and the rest came down to the beach as the 
anchor went up and gave me one final " Hurrah 1 " 

Though I'd been elevated to the Marquesan peerage more 
than once, and crowned with heathen honours, I felt mighty 
proud as those wild-looking white men waved their wide- 
brimmed sombreros and cheered and cheered. I felt 

179 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

that I had accomphshed something in my life, something 
creditable, and almost mihoped for in my schoolboy 
dreams. 

I had played their old songs on my violin ; recited The 
Prisoner of Chillon; written love letters to relatives and 
far-away wives, Penelopes, faithless damsels and longing 
daughters, and, notwithstanding their fascinating per- 
suasions, had only become slightly, jovially, inebriated 
twice, and by so doing had earned their undying respect. 
Ah me ! I well knew that my mother, my sisters and old 

austere Aunt M would have swooned away at the very 

thought of my mixing with such terrible men. But what 
knew they of the great world, of adventure and all that 
appealed to the heart of sanguine youth ? 

But to return to the voyage of the Sea Swallow. I stood 
on deck and watched the forests dwindle, as the shores of 
Nuka Hiva receded, and we cut away out into the Pacific. 
While the skipper swore, the mountain peaks became lower 
and lower, till they looked like big jewels sparkling on the 
horizon astern, twinkling softly in the light of the setting 
sun. 

The Sea Swallow was a tramp steamer, carrying sail to 
steady her, for she rolled like a ball on a rough sea. 

I never met a more jovial skipper than Captain C . 

He had his drawbacks, but could swear well, and thought 
he was something of a genius on the violin. When he was 
half-seas-over he could play — a jig. 

I think he managed to snap twenty strings one night 
as he tried to imitate my playing of Paganini's Carnaval de 
Venise. 

The weather was gloriously beautiful the first two days 
out. I remember I was having a cup of coffee with the fierce 
old cook in the galley when the hurricane struck us. It 
swooped down, as is usual in those parts, without the 
slightest warning, blowing great guns ere nightfall, and by 
eight bells we were shipping thundering seas. There was 
something in that infinite expanse of raging, mountainous 
waters that appealed to me. I stood on deck watching the 
great foaming crests rise and roll away. The stars were out, 

i8o 



THE CASTAWAY 

marshalled in their millions across those infinite frontiers—, 
and as we pitched along, the ship slewing first to leeward, 
and then over to windward, with the heave of those mighty 
hills of ocean, those regiments of starry constellations 
shifted, right about turn, to the pendulous sway of the 
masts' tips. 

Rolling along, the wild poetry of that ramping, shouting, 
glorious, frantic Pacific entered my sou] and sent my thoughts 
back through the past. It almost seemed as though I had 
imagined that far-away isle, the grog shanty and all my 
recent experiences. I thought of Waylao. Where was she ? 
Had she returned home, or had she followed the fate of the 
derelict girl from Noimiea ? Little did I dream, as we beat 
across the storm-beaten Pacific, that down below in the 
depths of the hold beneath my feet wept a stowaway — a 
figure huddled up, hidden amongst the bales of cargo, 
moaning in the pangs of fright and misery, imprisoned and 
starving in that iron coffin, nailed in, dead, yet alive — and 
that this trembling, dying stowaway was Benbow's daughter, 
Waylao. Yes, unknown to me, as that tramp dived her 
nose into those raging gulfs, Waylao shrieked for death to 
come to release her from her misery, just below deck, imder 
my feet. 

She had stowed away about half-an-hour before we left 
Tai-o-hae. How she had managed to creep on board 
without being observed was a mystery. Still I know by 
experience that it is possible, for Grimes and I had done it 
more than once ourselves. 

Waylao told me after how she had crept aboard and 
slipped down the fore-peak hatchway, and her terrible 
despair as she heard the sailors cry, " Let go ! " and crash ! — 
down went the hatchway. As she stared up from that dark 
depth she saw the last gleam of the blue tropic day vanish, 
and knew she was a prisoner. 

Hidden in that inky darkness, she had heard the throb 
of the engines, and, reaching the open sea, had become fear- 
fully sick, from the roll of the steamer and the stifling air 
of that hold. The rats in hungry droves came out and 
attacked her as she crouched on the bales of merchandise. 

i8i 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

In her despair she had shrieked ; but not a sound had 
reached the sailors on deck. She felt the roll of the 
hurricane-lashed ocean, had heard the crew singing their 
wild chanteys in the tempest. 

Striving to climb up the iron stanchions to get near the 
fore-peak deck, and make herself heard, she had fallen back 
into the depths of that dark hold, and, clutching at the cases 
to save herself, had torn her finger-nails off. God only 
knows the intense misery that that wretched castaway must 
have suffered down in the bowels of that steamer. It's 
bad enough when two strong men stow away, and have each 
other's companionship, but how terrible for that frail girl 
down there, quite alone, accompanied by her memories and 
her misery. 

She was nearly dead when, a week out from Tai-o-hae, 
they discovered her, broken, bleeding and starved. 

The storm had blown itself out. We were cutting along 
at about eleven knots. It was one of those nights when the 
monotony of the sea was broken by the glorious expanse of 
the illimitable heavens. 

The vastness of the ocean set in those dim, encircling 
sky-lines had stirred my imagination, I was standing on a 
visionary ship in a rolling world of illusions. The far-off, 
pale horizons on every side were not horizons of reality, but 
dim, far-off sky-lines of more distant, wonderful, unknown 
seas, where sailed the old ships that were loaded with 
magical, sweet-scented cargoes of human dreams. I fancied 
I could hear the faint moaning of the deep, moving waters, 
the waves breaking away from God's mighty Imagination, 
an Imagination sparkling the wonderful foam of Immortal 
Beauty. I heard the winds of sorrow drifting across the 
reefs of starry thought, beating finely, steadfastly, against 
Eternity, I was only called back to the realms of Time by 
the shuffling of sea-boots coming along the deck. 

I took my pipe from my lips, wondering on the sudden, 
unusual commotion. As I stared through the gloom, I 
saw the huddled crew coming aft. It was a perfect night, 
hardly a breath of wind to stir the canvas. The sails 
bellied out and then — flop ! — they went, like grey drums 

182 



OUR LITTLE HAUNTED WORLD 

beating out muffled riveilUs to the stars. The skipper was 
tramping to and fro on the poop as the crew stood by the 
gangway whispering together. 

"What on earth's the matter ? " was my mental comment, 
as one of their number, a sleek-faced Yankee, went on to the 
poop as spokesman. 

As he approached the " Old Man," I half wondered if a 
mutiny was on, and calculated in my mind as to which side 
I should join, while my heart leaped with excitement. Then 
I heard the Yankee say : 

" Cap'en, we got a serious matter to speak about." 

"Well, get on with it," said the skipper, as he stared at 
the men about him as though he thought they had gone 
mad. 

"Well, Cap'en," said the sailor once more, as he expec- 
torated so as to relieve his feelings. Then, to my astonish- 
ment, he blurted out : " This God-damned ship's 'aunted I " 

The skipper gazed contemptuously on the speaker, then 
yelled : 

" Haunted, you say ? Well, get to hell out of it ! Or go 
forward and put up with it! " 

" 'Tain't no good, sir, yer carrying on. Ship's 'aunted, 
and I, for one, ain't going forrard no more." 

" You moon-struck, superstitious niggers, clear to hell out 
of it, or, by God ! I'll put you back," yelled the now enraged 
skipper, as he stamped on the deck. 

Then the boatswain quickly stepped forward and said : 

" Captain, I reckon this 'ere packet's 'aunted right enough. 
You can come up by the fore-peak and listen for yourself. 
We ain't mad." 

Saying this, old Bully-beef — for that was the boatswain's 
nickname — spat on the deck, and then looked the captain 
steadily in the eyes. 

The skipper's manner immediately changed. He had 
sailed with Bully-beef for several years, and knew that he 
was a level-headed old fellow. 

For a moment he returned the boatswain's stare, then he 
responded : 

" Well, I'll come forward and see your ghost, but, mind 

183 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

you, I don't want any fooling here. Now then, lads, tell me 
what's upset you all ? " 

"Waal, Skipper," said the first spokesman, "we can't 
get no sleep, for, by God ! there's a spirit down in the hold. 
We heard it talking last night to another of its kind, and then 
it moaned like a mad thing and started to sing. Ain't that 
right, Billy ? " 

As the Yankee gave this information, he turned to another 
sailor, who immediately stepped forward to corroborate the 
evidence : 

" Sir, it's right enough. I went on deck last night and 
stamped my foot, thinking to frighten the thing away, but 
it only wailed louder and louder still, and started to speak. 
So I puts my ear to the deck, by the hatchway, and listens. 
Blowed if I didn't hear it moan and say : ' Oh, Christ, 
protect me. Sink the ship. Mercy ! Mercy ! '" 

" You did, did you ? " said the skipper emphatically, as 
he pulled his cap back from his forehead. 

Walking down the poop gangway, he said : " Come on ! 
We'll soon see about your ghost." 

In a moment the crew and the huddled Kanakas — for we 
had several natives amongst us — followed the Old Man. 

As we all stood assembled by the fore-peak, we listened. 
Only the sound of the long-drawn roar of the dipping bows 
and the jiggle of the screw disturbed the vast silence of the 
calm sea. 

One of the crew stamped his foot on the deck. Then they 
all listened again. They heard a noise. 

" 'Ear that, sir ? " said the boatswain. 

"Hear what? " said the skipper, as he looked aloft as 
the rigging rattled and the smoke from the funnel slewed 
about and went south-west like a great bank of cloud 
beneath the stars. " Why, you damned lot of cowards, I'm 
blessed if you are not all frightened of the wind's whistle in 
the rigging ! " 

"Wait a bit, wait a bit, sir," said the boatswain, as the 
bows dipped and an interval of silence came. Then he 
too stamped his big foot. 

Just as the skipper was about to yell at them again, he 

184 



WAYLAO SAVED 

suddenly stopped. A look of interest, that swiftly changed 
into astonishment, came on to his face. 

There sounded quite distinctly to the ears of the huddled 
crew a long, far-away wail. 

" Clear the hatch off. Now then, rise and shine. Don't 
stand there with your God-damned mouths wide open ! 
By heaven ! get a move on you." 

Some of the native members of the crew hesitated before 
they started to do the skipper's bidding. Then all worked 
with a will. Off came the canvas covering — crash ! crash ! 
— and the wooden bolts were loosened. 

"Fetch me a lantern," shouted the skipper. Then, 
beckoning to the boatswain to follow him, he leaned over 
the dark depth and went down the iron ladder into the 
ship's hold. 

The boatswain looked at the sympathetic faces of 
the crew, glanced seaward at the stars on the horizon as 
though for the last time in his mortal existence — and also 
disappeared. 

Presently we all heard a tumbling and a mumbling, then 
a, deep moan. 

" Good God Almighty ! " came a voice from below. 

" Hold her legs. That's it. Gently now ! " In a moment 
we were all bending over the edge of the hatchway. We saw 
the skipper climbing up with the figure in his arms. " It's 
a stowaway ! " was the cry all round. In a moment the 
red-bearded cook and I had grabbed the deck grating. As 
the skipper came up we all leaned forward. Good Lord I 
never, surely, was a sadder sight. There on the deck, imder 
the stars of that wide Pacific, they laid her. The huddled 
crew gazed upon her : they could only stare with awestruck 
eyes on that beautiful face. 

I rushed to get water. It was I who first bent over that 
stricken form as the skipper lifted the unconscious head. 
It was Waylao who lay there before me ; but so wasted was 
she that I did not recognise her. As the cool winds drifted 
across the deck and the sailors and the black squad stepped 
back, the fresh air revived her. We saw her eyelids quiver — 
they opened and gazed upon the crew silently. 

185 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

As I stood among those men and stared at that face 
through the gloom, I thought it was some beautiful white 
girl. There was no semblance to a half-caste in that thin 
face before us. I thought that I must be going mad as I 
pushed the cook aside and stared again, for in the excite- 
ment of it all I had fancied that the girl that lay before us, 
pale-faced and stricken, was Pauline. 

It was a mad idea, I know ; but I had been thinking 

more about John L 's daughter than I have cared to 

confess. 

As the shadows of the funnel's smoke passed over us, it 
seemed that I was a member of a phantom crew, so silent 
were those huddled men as they watched the pale face of 
that figure lying there, on the hatchway. 

The captain ordered us to lift the grating and take her 
into the cuddy. When we had placed her tenderly in the 
spare cabin's bunk, we saw the way she was. The light 
of the swinging lamp lit up her face. Her bosom was quite 
bare, her garments being torn to fragments. We had no 
sooner placed her in the bunk and laid her head on the 
pillow than she fell asleep. There were only four of us, 
beside the skipper, as we stood in that cabin. I saw them 
look solemnly at each other ; then each coughed, as if to say 
in significant silence : "So thaCs the secret of the stowaway. 
She's stowed away because oiThaV 

In a flash I had recognised Waylao. For a moment I 
was so astounded that I couldn't even speak or think. Then 
my wits came to my assistance. I decided to keep my own 
counsel and never reveal by the slightest sign that I had 
seen the girl before. 

It was three days before Waylao could sit up in her bunk 
and think reasonably. But, considering her serious con- 
dition when found in the hold, her improvement was wonder- 
fully rapid. The cook made special soups, and the skipper 
seemed always to be examining the small drawers of his 
medicine chest. " That's fine for cuts and bruises," he'd 
say, as he brought out boxes of ointment and went off to 
give Waylao medical attention. 

I do not think I can do better than refer to my diary and 

i86 



I FEEL A BIT ASHAMED 

reproduce my own remarks at this period of my story. 
Here's how the entries go : 

"September 19th. — ^Waylao looks wonderfully well to-day. 
Her finger-nails have fallen off, and the new nails are just 
peeping out of the quicks. I played the violin to her this 
afternoon. She's got a voice that fairly thrills one. The 
skipper says she'd make a fortune in America, on the stage. 
As we sat on deck last night, Waylao and I referred to the 
poor escapee girl form Noumea, and I told her exactly how 
I found the convict girl afloat in the lagoon at daybreak. 
Waylao cried like a child when I said I had placed a little 
cross on the girl's grave. 

" The boatswain's given Waylao a beautiful silk and tappa 
dress. She looks fine in it. He'd bought it from a native 
at Hivaoa, for his wife, I suppose. Poor wife, she'll never 
see that dress. 

"September 20th. — I've been chaffed a good deal by 
the crew for paying such a lot of attention to the stow- 
away. It's a good job I didn't let on that I knew her 
before I left Tai-o-hae. 

"Waylao keeps talking about Father O'Leary and her 
mother. I've promised to go and see them both when I 
go back to Nuka Hiva. God knows when that will be, 
I don't. 

" The sailors on this boat are fine fellows. Perfect gentle- 
men, so far as the opinion of the world doesn't go. Only 
one scoimdrel on board ; he knocked my bow arm up in the 
air with his fist as I was playing the violin in the forecastle. 
We had a fight. His lip's swollen, but I've got a lump 
just over the right eyebrow. The skipper's put some of his 
special ointment on my lump ; says he's ashamed to think 
of a respectable fellow like me fighting on board his ship. 
I do feel a bit ashamed of the lump, I admit. 

" Sighted Tengerewa Isle on the starboard this evening. 
As we passed by we could distinguish the coco-palms ; 
they looked like the distant masts of some old Spanish 
galleon derelict, ashore on an unknown isle in an unknown 
sea — masts that had been there so long that they'd burst 
into leaf. As the stars came out we could hear the breakers 

187 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

humming on the reefs far away. It's funny, but the 
noise of those breakers came very loud once or twice, and 
made me think of the early workmen's train that rushed 
by my bedroom when I last lodged at Battersea, London 
Town. 

"Waylao and I sat on deck till midnight. Saw vast 
flocks of strange birds going south under the stars. They 
looked like migrating cranes, had long necks, saw them 
distinctly fly down the big moon looming on the horizon. 

" Never saw such a calm sea ; looked like a mighty mirror 
that was walled round by pale crystalline substance, and 
vaulted by a dome ornamented with myriads of inexpressibly 
beautiful stars imaged in the vast mirror beneath, with 
phantom ships sailing across it, breaking the brittle surface 
into sparkling foams of phosphorescent light. 

" It seemed hard lines that so many millions of worlds were 
wasting their glory in infinite space, and I so hard up that 
I had to travel across that ocean for a pittance of two pounds 
ten shillings a month. 

" Thursday, September 2l5i. — Made it up with boatswain's 
mate. He seems to like me since the fight. It's a fact that 
it's only wasting breath to quote the poets to men in an 
argument. It's like throwing pearls to swine. Nothing 
like a good smash in the jaw to convince a man that you 
are as good as he is. 

"The skipper got fearfully drunk last night. I had to 
play the fiddle till two o'clock in the morning as he sang a 
song that had no melody in it. He said it was composed by 
his imcle, a Doctor of Music! I and the cook eventually 
lifted the Old Man up with due respect and dropped him in 
his bunk — ^dead drunk. 

" Waylao 's been telling me what she intends to do when 
she gets to Suva, Fiji. I'm worried about her ; she talks 
like a child. It's a bit of a job to have a girl like Waylao 
on one's hands. I feel that I must look after her. It seems 
like a dream to me, this girl on a ship with me, lost, far 
away at sea. I feel quite like some Don Juan, out here 
in the wide Pacific with a beautiful half-caste girl looking 
to me for protection. Those old novels that I read as a 

i88 



THE WARM, WILD, PASSIONATE SOUTH 

child were true after all. There is such a thing as romance 
on earth, or at least on the seas. 

''Friday, September 22nd. — Been thinking of England 
to-day. I'd give somethii^ to hear the thrush singing up 
in the old apple-tree of my grandfather's estate. 

" It's wonderful how beautiful another place seems when 
you are sailing across Southern Seas, perfectly alone. As I 
dreamed, I could hear the ship's Kanakas singing their 
native songs in a strange tongue. I like their melodies; 
they sound weirdly sweet. The words seem to go like this : 
' Cheery-o, me-o, O see ka vinka ! too-ee-me, loge wailo, 
mandy-o ! pom ! pom ! ' As they sang aloft, their shadows 
dropped down through the moonlight on to the deck at my 
feet. 

" I thought of my dear mother last night. I'd give 
something to put my arms round her to-night. I was her 
favourite : that's natural enough, as I'm the worst boy of 
the family. 

''Saturday. — Feel a bit worried to-day. I went mad 
last night. The world seemed beautiful ; I felt like some 
old poet who'd crept out of the tomb and found the worid 
reading his poems. Waylao and I sat on deck. It was a 
glorious night, perfectly calm. The sky was crowded with 
stars. I could just see the outline of Waylao's face in the 
gloom beside me. She was sitting in the skipper's deck- 
chair. Her face seemed ineffably beautiful, her eyes seemed 
to have caught the ethereal gleams of the stars. She 
fascinated me. I felt a wild desire enter my heart. Then 
I took hold of her hand and whispered : 

" ' Waylao, I am worried about you.' 

" 'And I about you,' she responded half absently. 

"Again the wild impulse thrilled me, but still I spoke on. 

" ' Girl, we are only shadows in this world. In a little 
while all this dream of ours will be less than a dream. It 
is strange that you should have come into my life like this. 
I half wish that I had never met you,' said I. Then, 
before I could imderstand what I was doing, I placed my 
arms about her ; I pulled her gently towards me. Her face 
was lifted up to mine; I gazed into the depths of those 

189 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

exquisite eyes, they shone so brightly. I looked at the 
mouth: it quivered. Ah! it was a beautiful mouth; it 
seemed to be curved so that it might tenderly resemble 
the warm, wild, passionate South. 

" Alas ! though I was born in the far-away cold North- 
West, I, too, seemed to feel the spell of the impassioned 
starlit Isles. I tried to control myself ; but men, let alone 
romantic youths, are weak, and so I fell — I clasped her in 
my arms and pressed my lips to hers. Heaven only knows 
what I might not have said to her in my madness if the 
boatswain had not called me : ' Hey, hey, youngster ! 
Where are you ? What the hell ' 

" I leaped away into the darkness. 

" I never had a wink of sleep that night. This morning 
I could not look Waylao in the eyes. When no one was 
looking, she took my hand and smiled in such a way that 
I knew that she understood my feelings. Ah me ! I shall 
never make a good missionary. Waylao 's look and her 
manner convinces me that she is better than I am. Con- 
fession is good for the soul. I ought to be better than I was 
last night, for I have confessed the truth — had sinful thoughts, 
and the half-caste girl has made me a better youth. Wish 
I wasn't so passionate a fellow. 

'^Sunday, September . — Sang hymns to-day in the 
cuddy. Skipper's very religious on Sunday. I told Waylao 
all about England to-day, and became quite sentimental. I 
told her of the splendour of the woods — how May came and 
quickened the fields to green sprouting grass ; how the wild 
hedgerows budded forth their beauty — like some poetic sorrow 
of the old sunsets — bleeding forth pale, anaemic blossoms, 
flowers that scented the airs with old memories. I told her 
of the blackbird singing its overture to the sunrise. I said : 
' Ah, Waylao, I long to hear the blackbird again, telling me 
that God, its Creator, too, has some divine memory of the 
voice of a goddess who sang to Him ere His first heaven was 
shattered into the chaos of all the stars.' 

" While I spoke to Waylao night fell. I could only hear 
the throb of the engines as we slid across the sea. As the 
girl stared up at me in the dusk, I fancied that we two sailed 

190 



A SIGNAL TO THE INFINITE 

across strange seas, quite alone, and there was no one else 
in the world. A shooting star slid across the sky, arched 
and faded like some signal thrown out of a door in heaven. 
Waylao trembled like a leaf as she saw that light in the sky ; 
she said that it was a terrible sign. I tried to cheer her up, 
saying that she must not believe the old legends that her 
mother told her, that a shooting star did not mean anything 
awful, that no one was to die through its fall, that most 
probably it was a signal to the infinite that some mortal 
had just spoken the truth. 

"That star, nevertheless, made me wonder as I looked 
up at the heavens. I couldn't help thinking of God. The 
vastness of creation, the wonder of the stars seemed so 
terrific that a thrill went down my backbone. How vast 
God must be. He who can hold creation with its myriads 
of worlds in the hollow of His hand. Where did God come 
from ? This shows that we lack several senses. I suppose 
that the tropic bird that sailed through the dusk over the 
ship, and looked at us with its beautiful wild eyes, wondered 
where our ship came from. Even if that bird had intellect, 
would it ever dream of the primeval forest, the giant pines, 
how they fell before the axe ; and were shaped into masts ; 
of the shipbuilders ; of mighty furnaces smelting the ores 
from the old hills ; of the toil of men, and the strikes for 
higher wages ; the happy homes in the villages kept up by 
the money that the shipbuilding brought to them ; of the 
village theatre and the happy sprees as the wives took the 
children out full of laughter, to come home again and romp 
in their cots about it all ; of the brass plate on the coffin 
telling the man's name who fell down the hold of the ship 
and was killed the day it was launched, and of the wonders 
of the voyages ? Stop ! Good heavens ! I could go on like 
this for ever. Why, the history of a box of matches would 
fill all the paper on earth with all-absorbing wonders. 
It only shows that the mystery of God is only wonderful 
to us because we lack the sense to fathom the mystery. 
Anyway, I'll believe in God till I die. I used to believe in 
a creed, but I think it best to believe in God. 

" I suppose I'm talking like this because I've been thinking 

191 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

of Pauline. Waylao has been telling me to-day how she 
and Pauline sat in the forest by moonlight and sang old 
heathen songs together, songs that were supposed to make 
the man who would love them poke his head out of the 
waters of the lagoon that they watched. Waylao hummed 
the songs to me. I don't know why, but the look in her 
fine eyes made me feel intensely unhappy. I'm a most 
passionate fellow at times. I have strange moods, moods 
that make me feel very tender towards women and men. 
I' suppose it's a kind of insanity. I've taken a liking to 
the funniest old men and women imaginable. Once my 
fancy was for an old ex-convict : he was about eighty years of 
age, swore fearfully, cursed God, never washed himself, woke 
up in the middle of the night and roared forth atheistical 
songs, opened his mouth wide and hissed ' He ! He ! He ! ' 
like a fiend, as he mentioned the Deity — and yet when I 
was down with fever he waited on me as though I were his 
child. Not even my dear mother could have outvied the 
tenderness of that villainous scoimdrel. I recall to mind 
how I met a little native girl in Samoa. She was only six 
years of age, curly-haired, and had brown, beautiful baby 
eyes. I never saw such a pretty rosebud mouth, or retrousse 
nose. I played the violin, and she sang like a bird. We 
even went off busking together. When I went away she 
threw her arms about me and looked into my face like a 
woman of twenty. That little girl's face haunted me for 
days ; I even counted up how old I'd be when she was 
twenty, thinking that I could come back to the South Seas 
and marry her. 

" I tell these things to show one that I am no ordinary 
being. I hope some day to be able to publish this complete 
diary of my travels. Who knows, men may read it and try 
to diagnose my temperament." 

(Page missing here in my diary.) I must reproduce the 
next entry : 

" Sunday Night. — ^Waylao not well ; gone to bed early. 
Played the violin for two hours ; skipper does not like my 
practice. I must admit it's not pleasant, for I'm practising 
diflSicult technical studies. I've got hopes of becoming a 

192 



SANGUINE YOUTH 

great violinist ; I feel ambitious, and hope to be a kind of 
Paganini some day. I often feel that I'm something special 
in the way of Man, and dream of my coming greatness. 
This egotism of mine makes me supremely happy. Some- 
times I see, in my imagination, the great hoarding bUls 
throughout the cities of the world announcing that ' I AM 
COMING ! ' I've gone so far as to imagine that the Queen 
commanded my presence at Buckingham Palace. I've been 
knighted — in dreams. I've heard the royal voice exclaim 
'Arise, Sir — (incognito) — Sir Shadow.'^ I nearly revealed 
my name, my identity then. Phew ! Supposing I had done 
so, what would haughty old Uncle Jack and prim, aristo- 
cratic old Aunt Mally say to hear that I had published a 
diary telling of such things — the whole truth out at last — 
deliberately published a public record telling how So-and-so's 
youngest son had sailed the Southern Seas with a beautiful 
half-caste girl — and a girl like that, too ? They'd raise 
their hands with horror, shocked, disgraced, broken with 
the thought of ' What will They say ? ' Who the devil 
cares for They ? " 

I see by the next entry in my diary that I gave the skipper 
several violin lessons. Here are the entries : 

" Skipper gone violin mad. He's got a good ear, but his 
technique and time are rotten. I'm on sick list. Skipper kept 
me up all night. Though I hate whisky, I swallowed several 
glasses through his infernal persuasion. I can see now that 
it was deliberate on his part. He says that I played the 
violin like a heathen god. I know that I did something, 
because the violin's strings were all broken this morning. 

" I've got some dim recollection of pressing Waylao's 
hand when the skipper wasn't looking, recall some faint 
idea that I thought she was a glorious Madonna, and that 
I whispered impassioned things into her ears. I think I 
danced too. The world seemed to have suddenly righted 
itself, everything seemed beautiful and rosy. Death and 
God walked mercifully together. I even got over-familiar 
with the skipper — smacked him on the back and told him 

^ The author had intended to publish this book anonymously and 
has left the manuscript as originally written. 

N 193 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

he'd be a good violinist in about a thousand years' time. 
No more whisky for me, thank you. 

" Monday. — Passed Curacoa reef this afternoon. Samoan 
Isles are away to the north. Been thinking of dear old 
Grimes ; wish he was with me. 

"Waylao cried for two hours to-day. I did my level 
best to cheer her up. She had been telling me a lot about 
her chUdhood. I find that she is really a most intelligent 
girl, but rather given to following her impulses instead of 
calm reason. Like me in that respect. 

" I feel sometimes that I'm half in love with Waylao. 
She's romantic ; has got a beautiful golden gleam in the 
pupils of her eyes. I can easily see how that devil of a man 
got her into trouble. She's been talking a lot about Eastern 
men, Indians, etc. Got my suspicions about things. I know 
what the world is : read about life in the newspapers, 
London, England. Wicked, soulless old bounders some 
men are. 

" I dreamed about Pauline last night. She came to me 
as I was playing the violin by the old grog shanty. I 
threw my arms around her ; she kissed me passionately, 
saying that she had loved me all the time. She seemed 
wondrously beautiful in the dream. I can't imagine 
anything so gloriously divine now that I'm wide awake. 
Yet I somehow feel the effect on my heart. It's strange 
that the most divine conceptions of beauty are realised 
when we are asleep. Perhaps it's a beautiful premoni- 
tion, some prophetic knowledge of what things will 
be like when we are dead — and yet, what about night- 
mares ? 

" Tuesday. — Sighted isles off Fiji at sunset last night. 
Smelt the odours of decaying, overripe fruits as the wind 
blew gently from the land. 

" A fleet of canoes passed on the port side. Big, savage, 
tattooed men waved paddles to us, friendly-wise. Passed 
one little isle that was inhabited by one hut, sheltered by a 
large, feathery palm-tree. Looked like the gaudy-coloured 
picture of a South Sea novel, as the Fijian chief stood by his 
hut door with his club, and his deep-bosomed wife threw 

194 



I DREAM OF PAULINE 

the sailors a graceful salutation, kiss- wise, with hand at her 
lips. They had two fainy toatisis (girls), who were all the 
while running up and down the shore, waving their arms 
and splashing in the waves. 

" Waylao is very excited at the prospect of going ashore 
soon. I've told skipper that I intend leaving the ship at 
Suva. He was angry at first, but calmed down after, and 
paid me all that was due to me. 

"The boatswain kissed Waylao when she wished the 
sailors good-bye. 

" I felt a bit wild at the way some of the sailors chaffed 
me about Waylao. But I don't care. .I'm getting used to 
chaff and the winks and ways of this clever world. 

"You ought to have heard the skipper giving Waylao 
advice about stowing away in the holds of tramp ships. He 
gave her a little cash, too. Shows he doesn't belong to a 
Charity Organisation, doesn't it ? 

" I promised to meet Waylao ashore. Sailors all winking 
and accusing me of leaving ship so as to accompany the 
pretty stowaway. I've been to Suva before, so I know all 
about the best spots for a girl like Waylao to get lodgings." 



195 



CHAPTER XIX 

Waylao's Ancestors — Lodging Hunting — Mr and Mrs Pink — I turn 
Missionary — Piety at Home — My Disastrous Accident — My 
Tardy Recovery 

I THINK it will be best now to leave my diary alone and 
go on in the old way. 
I see by the last entry that Waylao had some mad 
idea of going up to Naraundrau, which was a native town 
not far from the coast and the source of the Rewa river. 
She thought that she would come across some of her mother's 
royal-blooded relatives there. I told her that possibly her 
mother had exaggerated about the greatness of her people, 
or that perhaps, even if it was true, they were all dead, or 
slaving on the sugar plantations. But it was no good : 
she had some idea that she was descended from the great 
King Thakombau and that his palatial halls still existed up 
at Naraundrau. 

In my previous visit to Fiji I had met descendants of that 
Bluebeard of the South Seas, for such he was. He was a 
bloodthirsty cannibal in his earlier days, but in his old age 
became converted to the Christian faith. He had strangled 
dozens of maids and wives in his day for the cannibalistic 
orgies. But his later years had been renowned for his 
devoutness, though it was hinted by the old chiefs that his 
heart stUl clung fondly to the old beliefs and the heathen 
gods. Indeed it was rumoured that ere he died he gave 
minute instructions for several huge war-clubs and a large 
barrel of the best rxma to be buried in his grave with him. 
" For," said he, " if I am denied to enter shadow-land because 
I've deserted the old gods, I say, if the great white God 
denies my entry into paradise — why, what matters, can I not 
fight my way in ? " 

A week after Thakombau's death a terrible thunderstorm 
broke over the district of Bau, where he was buried. The 

196 



THE WORLD IN MINIATURE 

natives round those parts were horror-struck. They looked 
up at the lightnings and hid in the caves in their terror : 
they swore that the great cannibal king, Thakombau, had 
been denied by the great white God, and that, drunk with 
the rum and armed with his mighty clubs, he was fighting 
his way into the white man's heaven — with all his dead 
heathen warriors behind him. 

I see by the next entry in my diary that I secured lodgings 
for Waylao near Victoria Parade, Suva township. It was 
a snug room situated just over Pink's general stores. The 
population round that part was pretty mixed in those days. 
Not far from Pink's stores stood White's hotel. It was there 
where the swells from the Australian cities stayed when 
touring with their cameras and notebooks for details of 
wild life in the Southern Seas. 

I introduced myself to old Mrs Pink as a missionary. She 
was a whiskery-faced old woman, with suspicious, blinking 
eyes that were weak and appeared to be always shedding 
tears. 

I took her aside and said : " Madam Pink, I'm a mission- 
ary, my heart is my profession, and if you are kind to this 
girl whom I wish to place in your charge till she discovers 
her friends who live at Vauna Leveu, the members of my 
denomination will amply reward you, above that which I 
will pay you." 

I recall how the old woman glanced at Waylao with one 
eye cocked sideways, and then surveyed me critically. 
That look said a good deal, and I don't mind confessing 
that I felt a strong desire to pull the old girl's whiskers out 
by the roots. 

Then old Pink, her husband, arrived on the scene. He, too, 
was a stiff-whiskered-looking old man. His face was very 
tanned, his beard was scraggy and of reddish hue. Indeed 
his physiognomy looked like a large, fibrous coco-nut that 
had twinkling eyes peeping out of its shell. 

I sat in their little back parlour, and when I gave them 
enough money to pay for Waylao 's board and lodging for 
a week, they almost wept. The old woman went into the 
next room and sobbed out loud enough for me to hear : 

197 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

"Them 'ere missionaries are hangels, 'elping the 'elpless — 
and the fallen." 

I fancied I heard the smothered chuckle as old Pink 
nudged her in the ribs, as he, too, took the hint from his 
wily spouse and wailed out : " Gawd's anointed they is, 
them who 'elps the 'elpless." 

"I'm getting on in my missionary work, with apprecia- 
tion like this," thought I, as I heard those hypocrites fawning 
over Waylao, calling her endearing names as they took her 
upstairs. 

After I had seen Waylao comfortably settled I went for 
a stroll. As one may imagine, I was very worried about 
everything. But I was philosophical in those days, and 
felt that I could fight the pious world with my sleeves 
tucked up. 

That same night I met Waylao, as arranged, at the end 
of the Parade. I did not care to call at her lodgings, for I 
saw, plain enough, that the Pinks did not believe a word 
that I said. 

Ah ! how I recall that meeting, the last time I was to 
see her for many a weary day. I little dreamed of the 
tragedy, the awful fate, that was to befall that wretched girl 
ere we two met again. 

It was a lovely night. She looked very pretty as she 
stood before me, attired in her calico gown. She had taken 
my hint and dressed as well as possible. And as we stood 
there beneath the thick palm-trees I admired the red sash 
that swathed her waist and the small tanned shoes that I 
had spotted at Pink's stores and bought for her. She wore 
no hat, nor did she need one in that terrific heat. Her hair 
fairly shone, gleaming in the moonlight, as we stood there. 

"Waylao, what's to be done?" I said. Then I con- 
tinued by saying that I thought that it would be far better 
for her to attempt to return to her people than to look for 
help elsewhere. As gently as possible I hinted that I would 
get a job and so help her to get a passage by one of the 
trading boats that went almost weekly to Hivaoa and 
Nuka Hiva. 

I recall the very voices of the singing natives that went 

198 



A CIVILISED WHISKERED FACE 

pattering by on the way to the tribal village just outside 
of Suva township. The outcast girl looked so wretched 
as I spoke on that I could not express all that I felt when 
she still persisted in her mad idea to seek her mother's 
relatives. 

At length I got her promise to remain at the Pinks' 
establishment until I could get information about those 
relatives of hers. 

The next day I went down to Suva Harbour and boarded 
several ships, for I had it in my mind that if any of the 
trading vessels were going to the Marquesas, I would send 
a letter to Father O'Leary. I knew that he would help 
where others might fail. I also knew that a letter from the 
old Catholic priest to any of the skippers would get a 
passage on tick for a girl who was Benbow's daughter. 

I did not like to go back on Waylao, or do anything that 
she did not approve ; but I felt in my heart that I was 
attempting to do the very best for her. 

"Man proposes and God disposes." I say this because 
the very thing that happened at this period was, as far as 
I can see, the worst thing that could have happened. It's 
like this : I had been aboard a schooner, and finding that she 
was bound for Hivaoa, I had decided to wait about till the 
captain returned. He was ashore for a while. Full of hope 
that my scheme would work well, and that I would get 
Waylao a passage home, I hurried down the gangway, 
slipped, sprained my ankle. Providence also arranged that 
my head should come such a crack on the iron stanchion as 
I fell that I remained unconscious for five days. I say 
five days, but it was two weeks or more ere I could think 
coherently. 

I was taken in by a medical man who lived four miles 
out of Suva. I will not go into detail about my illness, all 
that I suffered when at length I recovered my senses ; how 
I tried to remember if Waylao was a dream or someone I 
had met in the flesh. As the days wore on, Mrs Pink's 
whiskered face loomed in front of my dreams. " It's real 
enough," thought I ; "no diseased imagination could fashion 
a face like that." Then Old Man Pink took a settled shape. 

199 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

I heard him waiHng about the goodness of things, and men 
elpmg the 'elpless. 

When at length I reahsed the truth of everything, I was 
m a fearful state of mind. What would Wnvl«n tl.ir.T. ^f 



m a teartul state of mind. What would Waylao think of 
my sudden absence ? Would she think that I had given 
her the slip-left her to her fate after all my tender expres- 
sions all that I said beneath those coco-palms on Suva 
Jraracle ' 



200 



CHAPTER XX 

The Pinks in their True Colours — A Charitable Community — 
Waylao thrown out — I return Too Late — Punishment for 
the Pinks 

I WILL do my best to record all that happened to 
Waylao after I was stricken down. 
It appeared that she waited and waited my return 
in absolute faith that it was no fault of mine that I had not 
turned up. I cannot describe her feelings as the days went 
by and I did not put in an appearance. But I can easily 
imagine a good deal from all I heard, not only from the people 
that resided in and around Pink's establishment, but from 
Waylao 's lips. It was a long time, though, ere we met once 
more, ere she came like a stricken wraith out of the night 
to Father O'Leary and I, before she again went away into 
the darkness. 

Mrs Pink was devoutly religious and a typical chapel- 
goer. She had even got old Pink to pay for a special pew 

in the wooden chapel at H . So it is not surprising that 

when the next week's rent was due she became extremely 
suspicious and fearfully pious. 

Each morning she would put her head through Waylao's 
doorway and, glaring fiercely with one eye, say : "Hi say, 
miss, 'e ain't returned yet, 'as 'e ? " 

Then the old bitch (forgive me, reader, you don't know 
Old Mother Pink as I do) would hand her the bill, stand 
with her arms akimbo across her wide hips, sneer and say : 
"Where's yer money? You're a fine old miss, with yer 
missionarrry, yer pink sash an' yellow boots ! " 

Waylao pleaded with the woman, assured her that I 
would return, that I must have met with an accident and 
had been delayed. 

" Met with a haccident ! It's you what's met with the 
haccident. I don't like the looks of it. It's a plant, that's 

201 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

what it is. 'Im a-going ter re — turn ! / knows ! I knows ! " 
So did Mrs Pink rave on as the days went by, appeaUng also 
to the neighbours who lived in the Httle wooden houses 
scattered round that part. They already knew about the 
pretty girl who was lodging in the Pinks' front room, brought 
there by a young missionary — who had deserted her — 
and she like that, too ! The delight of that motley crew 
was immense. The little village homes buzzed like bee-hives 
full of humming scandal. It was not unlike a native 
village at that spot, only instead of tawny faces and frizzly 
heads poking out of the little doors, they were pimply, 
dough-coloured faces with tawny wisps of hair and blue, 
glassy eyes expressing their shocked disapproval of the 
affair. Old women who had been fierce enemies, and not 
spoken to each other for months, fell into each other's arms. 
A kind of heathenistic carnival commenced : the whole of 
the population assembled beneath the palms and started to 
dance. "Kick 'er out ! Kick 'er out ! The faggot ! " they 
yelled. The natives hard by heard the noise and crept under 
the bread-fruit trees, then joined in the procession. It must 
have been a wonderful sight. Tawny old women, full of 
wrath, fat old women, short legs, long legs, brown legs, 
fierce-looking, tattooed creatures, some semi-heathens, others 
Christianised, wearing spectacles as they searched the books 
— their Bibles — and shouted forth the Commandments — all 
bunched there outside Pink's stores, staring up at Waylao's 
window. 

The old trader from Lakemba tried to stop the riot, and 

so made things worse, for he said: "What's the d d 

row about ? " When they told him, and the hubbub had 
ceased, and several retired women from the streets of New 
South Wales had fainted with the horror of it all, he con- 
tinued : "Well, I've been about these 'ere parts a d d 

sight longer than I orter 'ave been, but I never seed a 
prettier girl than that 'ere girl who's a-lodging up at Pink's." 

As the sunburnt trader finished, there was a tremendous 
silence ; the mob fairly gasped, could hardly believe their 
ears ; then up went a fierce howl of the maddest execration. 
White hags, scraggy hags, tawny hags, pretty girls and 

202 



so WAGS THE WORLD 

ugty girfs shouted as with one voice : " Turn 'er out ! Turn 
'er out ! The sinful woman to trade on the good nature of 
a Christian woman like Mrs Pink ! " 

Mrs Pink was overcome with emotion — she sobbed ; she 
seemed to have awakened from a nightmare to find herself 
famous. 

So was Waylao's fate decided. That same night, with all 
her best clothes detained for back rent, she left the Pinks' 
establishment, and started away, determined to go up the 
Rewa river and seek her relatives. 

It may be imagined I was not in the most pleasant of 
moods when I sat in Mrs Pink's parlour on my recovery. 
After all I'd heard from the people who lived opposite those 
infernal hypocrites, I had little hope of getting much truthful 
information. I did not let on that I had heard a word about 
that scandal or Waylao's flight as the old woman welcomed 
me. 

" Have you no idea why she went, or where she went ? " 
said I. 

I was sitting opposite Mr and Mrs Pink in their little 
parlour as I made that remark. 

" Poor, dear soul, we know not where she went. It was 
so sudden. Sir, it's nearly broke our 'earts, that it 'as, the 
idea of that poor gal being out in this 'ere awful world, 
'omeless." 

"You dear, godly woman," was my mental comment, as 
I thought of all that the trader who lived next door had 
told me. 

"Don't weep, Mrs Pink; it's no good weeping over the 
inevitable," said I, as I stared at the wall to hide my real 
feelings. 

Old Mother Pink sobbed the louder as I made that remark'; 
but I must admit that Old Man Pink paused a moment, 
withdrew his large red pocket-handkerchief, and used one 
eye in a steady sidelong gaze at my face. I think the holy 
old beggar heard the sarcastic note in my voice. However 
that may be, he suddenly rose and hurried out of the room. 
Then Mrs Pink handed me the bill, the sum total for Waylao's 
rent and expenses incurred. I said : " Ah, Mrs Pink, I'll 

203 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

never forget your kindness. I know human nature so well. 
I know that all the people living in these parts are good 
Christians, followers of the preaching of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, He who had nowhere to lay His head. I know that 
you all go to chapel here, as they do in the big cities of the 
world — New York, Paris, Berlin and London. Ah, Mrs Pink, 
I've travelled those cities ; you remind me so much of them, 
sweet soul that you are. I know that a great grief has come 
into your life and into the lives of your neighbours through 
the knowledge that a fallen girl is somewhere out in the 
world homeless. Did it upset you all much, Mrs Pink ? " 

" Indeed it did, indeed it did," sobbed the old hypocrite, 
as she bunched the handkerchief against her eyes and rubbed 
and rubbed. Then I proceeded : 

" I am a missionary, but a boy in years, but I'm honest, 
truthful and would help the fallen." 

"Yes, I know, I know," sobbed the old woman in her 
ecclesiastical anguish, as she gently pushed Waylao's bill 
a little nearer to me. 

Still I continued : " Ah, Mrs Pink, I know that if a voice 
said, ' She who is without sin cast the first stone,'' you of 
all would indeed be the one on earth to cast such a missile." 
Saying this, I looked at her ignorant face, and I saw that 
my remarks had fallen on barren soil. I rose from the 
chair, picked up Waylao's bill for rent and expenses incurred 
and tore it into pieces. The expression on the woman's 
face gave me extreme satisfaction. Without a word I 
strode out of the room. I passed Old Man Pink in the 
narrow hall that led down to the steps and the front door. 
I suppose he had been listening, so as to confirm his suspicions. 
If he had any doubts they must have been quite dispelled 
as he fell down the flight of steps and I strode away out 
into the night. He was an old man, and I did not intend 
to push against him in that narrow hall, but it was dark, 
and I was in no mood to argue with obstacles. 



204 



CHAPTER XXI 

I seek Waylao — The Heart of Fiji — I discover Traces of the 
Fugitive — The Bathing Parade — The Knut's Indiscretion — A 
Submerged Toilette — The Knut as TravelUng Companion — 
A Philosopher — A Noumea Nightmare — ^The Knut meets his 
Fate 

AFTER my interview with Mr and Mrs Pink I 
strode away, hardly knowing where I went to, 
I was so upset about Waylao 's disappearance. 
I slept out beneath some palm-trees just outside of Suva 
township ; or it would be more correct to say that I rested 
out, for I did more thinking than sleeping. Ere dawn came 
and the swarms of mosquitoes had finished their repast on 
my sweating frame I had made up my mind to go in search 
of Waylao. 

It was a glorious daybreak, the brilliant siuirise streaming 
through my branched roof, and the tiny reveille of the 
tuneful bush birds acted like a strong stimulant on my 
worried mind. 

Before the sim was up over the ocean's rim I had tramped 

two or three miles. I was on my way to N , the native 

village where Waylao's relatives were supposed to live. 
I felt quite sure that the outcast girl must have gone that 
way. Nor was I mistaken, for I had not gone far on my 
journey when I heard news of her. 

It was wild country that I had to pass through. One 
could himt the Pacific Isles and not find grander or more 
desolate scenery than those mountainous districts I crossed. 
I had a little money in my possession, and this fact con- 
siderably eased my journey, for I got a kindly native to 
paddle me up the Rewa river for quite five miles. After 
that beneficial lift I tramped it through the forest-lands, 
but I was not very lonely, for as I passed by the palm- 
sheltered native villages the children came rushing forth 

205 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

from the huts. They gazed inquisitively at me, then 
shouted " Vinaka ! Papalagi ! " and tried to steal the brass 
buttons off my tattered seafaring suit. They looked like 
dusky imps as I passed through those forest glooms, roofed 
by the giant bread-fruit trees. 

As I rested by the dusty track two little mahogany-hued 
beggars stole out of the shadows with their hands out- 
stretched — they had brought me oranges and wild feis 
(bananas), fancying that I was hungry. Nor were they 
mistaken in their fancy, for I had had nothing to eat since 
the last nightfall. 

As I ate the gift of fruit, they clapped their hands and then 
somersaulted with delight. " Vinaka ! White mans ! " they 
screamed, as they rushed off back to the hut villages to show 
their frizzly headed mothers the brass button that I had 
given them. 

I stayed in that village that night. My feet were very 
sore, and I could not manage to get along without rest. 

I felt pretty gloomy as I sat by the huts of those wild 
people, wondering what was best to do, as I slashed the 
multitudes of flies and mosquitoes away. Suddenly one of 
the dancing kiddies stood before me and said : " Marama, 
beautiful white womans, come likee you, Signa tamba 
[Sunday]." In a moment I was alert, and on inquiring of 
the chiefs who squatted by me, I heard that Waylao had 
sought rest in that very village. 

In a moment all the Fijian maids were standing round me, 
gabbling like Babylon, telling me how the pretty Marama 
had crept out of the forest. Seeing my intense interest in 
all that they attempted to tell me, they lifted their soft 
brown feet up and, with their eyes looking very sorrowful, 
intimated plainer than by word of mouth how Waylao 
had come amongst them in dilapidated shoes, footsore and 
weary. 

" Your wahine ? " said one pretty little maid as she put 
her finger to her coral-hued lips and grinned. 

" No," I said, as I shook my head, and then at finding 
that Waylao was not my wife, they gazed with deeper 
interest. 

2o6 



ROMANTIC MAIDENS 

" You after Marama ? She belonger you ? Runs away 
from you ? You love, she no love you ? " 

To please those pretty Fijian beauties, I placed my hand 
on my heart and sighed. I shall never forget the great 
murmur that went up from that flock of dusky mouths, or 
the gaze of those dark eyes that gleamed at the thought of 
some romance in the arrival of the travelling maid, her 
disappearance — and then my coming on the scene. Directly 
those old chiefs found that I was after the girl that they 
had befriended a few days before they became intensely 
excited. Up they jumped like mighty puppets on a string 
that had just been violently pulled by some hidden 
humorist. For a while I could not think — so loud, so 
plaintive were the comments of those dusky warriors. 

" Me give nice Marama food ! " " Me give 'ers nice coco- 
nut mOk," said another. So did they clamour about me, 
praising Waylao's beauty. Twenty terra-cotta-coloured old 
hags lifted their hands to heaven and praised the glory of 
Waylao's eyes. The head chief of the village prostrated 
himself at my feet. I knew too well that all this praise 
and servility to my person was because they wanted to 
get paid for anything that they may have done or pretended 
to have done for Waylao's sake. It relieved my feelings a 
good deal to find that she had had their sympathy. I felt 
that they had, anyhow, done their best. 

They were very savage-looking beings, dressed in the sulu 
only, tattooed and scarred by old tribal battles ; but their 
savagery — like civilisation — was only skin deep. When 
they told me that several of the village youths had given 
up their employment on the sugar plantations so that they 
could paddle Waylao up the river in a canoe, I took the old 
chiefs and chiefesses aside and, though I had only got a 
pound or so, I gave them the cash that I had intended to 
pay the pious, Christianised Pinks. 

I see by my diary that I arrived at N the following 

evening. N was as wUd a village as one could find 

in this world. Besides the native population, it was in- 
habited by the emigrant settlers who worked on the sugar 
and coffee plantations. These settlers were mostly Indians 

207 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

fiom the Malay Archipelago — Singapore, Malacca, Mandalay 
and Martaban. Indeed the first knowledge I received that 
I was in the vicinity of the village was when three pretty 
Malabar maids jumped out of a clump of bamboos and 
greeted me in a strange tongue. I inquired of them the 
nearest way to the village that I was seeking. 

One, a very pretty girl, dressed in a costume of many 
colours, could speak a little English. As soon as I had 
explained to her, she led the way, jumping along the track 
in front of me like a forest nymph. It was this Malabar 
girl who led me into the presence of the tribal chief. I 
think he was called the Bull. Anyway, he was a decent 
old fellow, could speak my language remarkably well and 
at once invited me into his homestead. I think this man 
(who was a half-caste) was a kind of missionary, and hailed 
from the mission station Maton Suva, down near the town 
of Rewa. 

As soon as I described Benbow's daughter to him, he 
became interested. Then I gathered from him that Waylao 
had arrived there in a destitute condition a week or so 
before. It appeared that she had made inquiries for the 
relatives that old Lydia had blown about so much, only to 
find that they had never existed, or were dead and forgotten 
long ago. 

Waylao 's disappointment and grief had filled the Buli 
and the native girls with compassion. They had done their 
best to cheer her up, had even invited her to stop in the 
village. Notwithstanding this hospitality, she had suddenly 
disappeared from their midst two days after her arrival. 
On going to the hut that they had prepared specially for the 
castaway girl, they found that she had flown. None knew 
the way of her going, for she had slipped away in the dead 
of night. I stiJl recall my disappointment over the result 

of my long tramp to N . I must admit that I could not 

blame the girl for leaving that semi-pagan citadel of the 
forest. 

I imagined how she would feel sitting by those huts 
with her new-made friends, how the gloom and the wild 
mystery of her surroundings must have depressed her. 

208 



THE INDIAN LINES 

Even / felt the distance from home ; indeed I could have 
half believed that I stood away back in some world of the 
darkest ages. The stars were out in their millions when I 
left my host and wandered into the village. I never saw 
such a sight as I witnessed that night. Notwithstanding 
the guttural voices, the strange hubbub of foreign tongues, 
the dim tracks and the little huts with their coco-nut-oil 
lamps glimmering at the doors, I felt that I stood in some 
phantom village. It seemed that representative types of 
all the ancient nations flitted around me. The strange 
odour of dead flowers and sandalwood intensified the magic 
of the scene, as the hubbub of the Babylonian-like rabble 
hummed in my ears. Through the forest glooms wandered 
soft, bright eyes, fierce eyes, alert eyes, hard faces, long 
faces, short faces, sardonic and cynical faces. Some had 
thick lips, some thin, with bodies sun-varnished, tattooed 
and magnificent, or white-splashed, shapely and graceful ; 
others were disease-eaten. Like happy phantoms the girls 
rushed by, the symmetry and grace of their tawny limbs 
exposed as the Oriental jewellery from the magical carpet 
bag jingled on their arms and legs. Some of them were 
graceful, pretty girls, others voluptuous-lipped, their eyes 
alight with greed and jealousy as they revealed their 
charms, and sought the approval of likely customers. 

At first I thought that some native carnival was in progress, 
but it was not so. It was simply the natives and the mixed 
emigrants jumbling and tumbling about together. Many 
of these emigrants were Indians who dwelt in hovels 
just outside the village. These hovels were called the 
Indian Lines. The men who inhabited them were mostly 
Mohammedans, swarthy men who made converts from the 
Fijians. 

One of my supreme gifts is insatiable curiosity, con- 
sequently I can assert that the scenes I witnessed almost 
outrivalled the orgies of the harem cave near Tai-o-hae. 
The Christian missionaries had done good work in Fiji for 
many years. It was they who abolished cannibalism and 
idol-worship, but as far as the ultimate result of their labours 
was concerned, they might as well have never moved a finger. 

o 209 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

For those Fijians were revelling in a sensual creed of emigrant 
Mohammedanism. 

Sickening of the sights that I witnessed just outside that 
village, I went back to that semi-pagan citadel. All the 
conical-shaped huts were sheltered by tall, feathery palms, 
clumps of scarlet ndrala and bread-fruits. At different 
points crowds of natives were collected, listening to the 
different lecturers who aspired to propagate their special 
views much the same as the chapel-goers of the civilised 
cities. One tawny, aged chief stood on a huge rum barrel 
yelling forth the manifold virtues of the olden heathen creed. 
As I strolled by, the listening crowd cheered him : " Vinaka ! 
Te rum ! Vinaka soo-lo ! " they shouted. A little farther 
off, yet again another lecturer who roared forth the glory 
of Mohammed. In his hand he waved the Fijian Koran. 
Outside the village stores, elevated on a tree stump, stood 
the village poet, yelling forth vers lihre and singing legendary 
chants of the stars and winds in the tree-tops. One old chief, 
who was tattooed from head to feet, his tawny face wrinkled 
like the parchment of a broken drum, stood on a large gin- 
case. He was a kind of South Sea Caliban. As he stood 
waving his long, tattooed arms and shouting to his followers 
who were assembled in that tiny forum, he spotted my white 
face. " Down with the heathen papalagi ! " he shouted. 
Then he glared scornfully at the turbaned Indian men who 
stood about him, and on the native maids who suckled babies 
with tiny, fierce, Indian-like faces. 

" Down with the Mohametbums ! " he yelled over and 
over again. 

I never saw such a wise-looking old Fijian as he looked. 
I can fancy I hear him now as I dream, as he stands there 
shouting : 

" Down with papalagis ! Fiji for the Fijians ! " 

They were not bad people when left to themselves. 
Indeed they had already successfully overthrown the curse 
of militarism that had crushed their isle during Thakombau's 
terrible reign. In their huts, hard by, hung the old war- 
clubs. Only those mighty weapons and a few bleached 
skulls told of the pre-Christian days. 

210 



I LONG FOR A CAMERA 

But I must not digress too much, for I have a long way 
to go yet. I only stayed in that village one night. At day- 
break I was up with the flocks of green parrots that swept 
across the sky, whirling like wheels of screaming feathers as 
they left their homes in the mountains. 

I made up my mind to go straight back to Suva. I had 
got it into my head that Waylao must have gone that way, 
possibly to inquire for me, to see if I had turned up after 
she had been thrown out of the Pinks' establishment. 

I felt like some wandering Jew as I tramped along by the 
seashore. Notwithstanding that I was alone, I forgot my 
immediate sorrows, for I felt that I was seeing the world, 
and the scenery that I saw around me was very beautiful. 
It was a lovely day. The inland mountains rose till their 
distant peaks seemed to pierce the blue vault of heaven. 
Lines of plumed palms and picturesque bread-fruits stretched 
for miles and miles. On the slopes grew the ndrala-trees, 
covered with scarlet blossoms. Along the shores gleamed 
the blue lagoons, shining like mirrors as the swell from the 
calm sea broke into sheafs of iridescent foam by the coral 
reefs. It seemed incredible that only a few years before 
the death drums of the cannibal tribes had echoed through 
that paradise of silent, tropical forest. 

As I tramped onward, my reflections were suddenly dis- 
turbed by a sight that one could not easily forget. Just 
below the forest-clad slopes stood a covey of nude native 
girls. Their tawny bodies were glistening in the sunlight 
as they emerged one by one from the depths of the lagoon 
by the shore. I was so near that I saw their brown, shapely, 
graceful bodies steaming in the hot sunlight. In their wet 
masses of unloosed hair still clung faded hibiscus blossoms 
of the day before, stuck in the thick folds by large tortoise- 
shell combs. They were having their morning bath. Though 
I knew well that it was wrong of me to remain concealed 
in the bamboo bush, still I remained there. As they stood 
chattering and laughing, thinking that they were quite 
unobserved, a young white man, of the " knut " type, 
emerged from the coco-palms just opposite them. I saw at 
a glance that he was a tourist. He had a camera with him. 

211 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Directly he spotted that sight he made a frenzied effort 
to place the camera on its tripod, and so get a snapshot that 
did not crop up every day. 

At this moment I too came out and revealed myself. 
As the native girls caught sight of us, they gave a frightened 
scream. They could not blush, for Nature, in their fashion- 
ing, had already made them, at their birth, blush from their 
head to their perfect toes, a terra-cotta hue. 

" Lako tani ! Lako tani ! " ("Go away ! ") they shouted. 
Lo ! ere we could believe our eyesight, up went twenty 
pairs of pretty nut-brown feet — splash ! they had all dived 
back into the lagoon. 

The Knut fixed his eyeglass and gasped out : " Well, I 
nevah ! " 

The covey of frightened girls had disappeared, gone to the 
bottom of the deep lagoon. 

" Good Lord ! they've drowned themselves," was his 
horrified ejaculation as I came up to him. It was true 
enough, there was no sight of a head on the water ; only a 
bubbling on the glassy surface, as though a fearful death- 
struggle was in progress beneath. 

" You've done it now ! " said I. " Fijian girls are so 
modest that sooner than be spied upon at such a moment 
they would die. They are as modest as white women." 

"No ! " was his awestruck comment as he stared at the 
water beyond the coral reefs just in front of us. His eye- 
glass dropped from his eye ; he gave another horrified ex- 
clamation at the thought of those beautiful, dusky Eves 
committing suicide through his curiosity. 

It was at this moment that a slight commotion became 
visible in the centre of the lagoon ; then up poked a mass 
of dishevelled hair, a pair of sparkling dark eyes and a set of 
pearly teeth. Next moment up came another, then three 
more — till in a few seconds they all clambered, splashing, 
ashore. There they stood, a flock of graceful, soft, tawny 
shining bodies sparkling in the sunlight, each one modestly 
attired in her pretty sulu (fringed loin-cloth). They had 
snatched up their scanty attire ere they had dived into the 
lagoon in order to arrange their toilettes in its secret depths. 

212 



BLOOD ROYAL 

The Knut refixed his eyeglass, thanking God as I helped him 
on with his coat, for he had prepared to dive after his victims. 

The Knut, the girls and I became quite pally. I helped 
him arrange them in an artistic row. We placed hibiscus 
blossoms in their frizzy masses of hair, and extra girdles 
of flowers about their shoulders. One never saw a prettier 
sight than those girls as they stood there laughing and 
steaming in the sunlight. I often look in the South Sea 
novels and reminiscent books in hopes that I may see the 
photographs that we took of them. It was quite a trade 
in those days to travel the South Seas taking snapshots of 
maidens having their morning bath ! 

That Knut and I became very friendly after that little 
episode. 

" Been this way long ? " said I. 

" Two weeks, deah bhoy," he responded in the cheeriest 
mamier. 

I took to him like a shot. When he had told me of his 
history, explained in fullest detail his blue-blooded ancestry 
and close connection to Charles I. of England, I casually 
remarked that I never saw anyone who so resembled my 
great-great-great-grandfather, King James of Scotland, as 
he did. 

" You've got his brow to a T. Blessed if you're not the 
dead spit of his painting that hangs in my ancestral halls, 
the other side of the world, in Kent. It's the eyes that I 
can't quite place. You see, it's like this. When Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel, the first Admiral of England, gave the painting to 
my aunt (who was related to the Guelphs, the present 
reigning family of the English throne) it had the eyes quite 
distinct, but, on being told that they resembled mine, I 
pointed to the canvas, and lo ! my fingers went right through 
the eyes. I was a kiddie then, so I cannot recall what they 
were really like." 

I never saw a Knut stare through an eyeglass like he did 
as I gave him the foregoing information. He wasn't a bad 
sort, for he took my hand in good comradeship, and, mutually 
satisfied with each other's pedigree, we had fine times 
together. 

213 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

On finding that he was going down to Suva, I at once 
accepted his invitation to accompany him. I must say 
he cheered me up ; he seemed to find amusement in every- 
thing. We took several photographs on the way that first 
day. When he heard me inquiring from the natives if they 
had seen a half-caste girl, he fixed his eyeglass firmly and 
peered at me curiously — then nudged me in the ribs. I did 
not tell him all that worried me, but he too began to help 
me in my inquiries. In fact I saw that he was curious about 
the affair. One can imagine my astonishment when he 
suddenly said, "Heigho ! Wait a minute," then, opening 
his haversack, pulled out a photo of Waylao. 

" Good heavens ! " was all I could get out, as I stared in 
astonishment at the beautiful face. 

" You don't mean to say that's her, deah bhoy ? Damn 
it all 1 " 

Then he told me how he had met a girl, several days 
before, resting on the rocks near Rewa town. Struck by 
the singular beauty of her face, he had taken a snapshot 
of her. 

" Did you speak to her ? Did you ask her if she was going 
to the Pinks ' ? " I almost yelled. For a moment he looked 
at me as though he thought I had gone mad, then said : 
" Who the devil are the Pinks, deah bhoy ? " 

For a moment I glared at him ; then the absurdity of it all 
came to me, and we both smiled. 

I explained to him as much as I thought necessary. 

" Quite romantic, old bhoy," he said, as I told him about 
Waylao stowing away on the Sea Swallow, and how she had 
been kicked out of the pious Pinks' establishment. 

He was a good-hearted fellow, for though he chaffed me 
a bit about it, I saw that he would have gone a deal out of 
his way to help me to find the castaway girl. I will not tell 
how deeply I dreamed of that girl. In imagination I saw 
her tramping along those wild tracks, homeless, friendless, 
and full of misery. All thought of securing a berth on a 
ship, or doing anjrthing whatsoever for myself, vanished. 
One resolve remained, and that was to scour the Pacific till 
I met Waylao. 

214 



THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE 

She was no longer Waylao the stowaway to me. She had 
become something wonderfully beautiful and mysterious, 
the poetry, the romance of existence. It was a strange 
madness : the very memory of her eyes seemed to be photo- 
graphed on the retina of my own eyes, and to send a poetic 
light over the wild landscape that I tramped across. I heard 
her voice in the music of the birds that sang around us. The 
sorrow that reigned in the heart of that homeless girl was 
mine also. 

I was not what the world calls in love. It was a wild^ 
romantic passion that came to me. I became a child again. 
I heard the robin singing to God high up in the poplar-trees 
just outside the little bedroom window — the room wherein 
X slept, a child. Romance existed after all. It was as real 
as the starving crows that faded across the snow-covered 
hills into the sunset, as real as the tiny, secret candle 
gleam on the magic page of the old torn novel by my 
bedside. The glorious poetry of childhood was true. 

But away mad dreams ! 

I recall how the Knut and I tramped across those wild 
miles. We cheered ourselves up by singing part songs. 
Who killed Cock Robin ? was our favourite melody. The first 
night we stayed at a small settlement near Namara, a native 
village. We met a strange old man at this spot. He lived 
in a hut by a palm-sheltered lagoon, slept on a fibre mat, 
native style, only wore a large beard and pants, and on his 
head a stitched banana-leaf hat. He was an ex-sailor. At 
first I took him for some mighty philosopher, some modern 
Montaigne out there in Fiji, unacknowledged and alone. 
But soon his wise sayings and growlings on life palled on us. 
He tried to impress the Knut and me that he was some kind 
of a mixture between Francois Villon and the wise Thoreau, 
with a splash of Darwin thrown in. I recall his hatchet-HL 
face. His drooping nose seemed to be commiserating with 
his upper lip as he artfully drank water and chewed dirty 
brown bread. On his table were piled the works of the 
philosophers : Montaigne's Essays, Diogenes, Thoreau 'siWet/i- 
tations in the Forest, J. J. Rousseau's Confessions, Darwin, 
and many more standard works. He spoke much about the 

215 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

beauties of Nature, of birds' songs and the beauty of flowers. 
And I believe he was a clever old man. His eyes shone with 
delight as the Knut and I praised him and bowed our heads 
in complete humility as he uttered tremendous phrases. 
In the corner of his hut stood a secret barrel of Fijian rum. 
It was neatly covered with a pail, but my keen nasal organ 
smelt it out. The natives told us that sometimes the old 
man got terribly drunk and danced like a madman by the 
door of his hut, to their extreme delight. He was, withal, 
a fine specimen of civilised man living under utterly new 
conditions in a strange country. Such men I have often 
met — ex-sailors, ex-convicts, ex-poets, ex-divines, authors 
and musicians — but seldom have they given one the slightest 
hint, by their mode of thought or their way of living, of 
their erstwhile calling during their life in civilised countries. 
Men change completely. Environment makes all the 
difference. Undress the artist, take the hope of praise for 
his enthusiastic efforts from him, make him a tribal chief, 
and lo ! his mental efforts are reversed. Some primitive 
tribe applauds his ferocious, cannibalistic appetite, his 
cruelty, his merciless, sardonic grin as some harem wife 
shrieks at the stake. And he who, by God's mercy, escaped 
the British gallows, roams some South Sea forest and finds 
himself ; becomes a poet, the wonders of Nature, the music 
of the Ocean turning his exiled thoughts near to tears. 
Experience has shown me that the inherent truth and 
goodness of men is mostly hidden, and they learn by artifice 
that which leads them to the gallows. But to return to my 
ex-sailor. He gave us a bed on the floor, and made us com- 
fortable ; but we never had a wink of sleep all night. He 
seemed delighted to get someone to listen to his philosophy. 
He had evidently been living alone for a long time with his 
thoughts, so we got the benefit of the great flood that burst 
forth from his long-closed lips. 

After we left that old sailor philosopher we walked two 
miles and then fell fast asleep under the palms, and made up 
for the night's philosophy. 

That evening we arrived at a little township near the 
mouth of the Rewa river. Having had so little sleep the 

216 



ILE NOU 

night before, the Knut took comfortable lodgings with a 
white settler, a Frencliman. 

As the evening wore on, we discovered that he had been a 
surveillant at He Nou, the convict settlement off Noumea. 
He was a pleasant man enough, but I could not help thinking 
of the power that had once been his. He seemed to take a 
delight in telling terrible anecdotes about his profession. 

As he shrugged his shoulders and murmured, " Sapristi ! 
Mon dieu ! " we both looked at him, horror expressed in 
our eyes. 

" Mine tere friens, I but do my duties," he said, as he saw 
the shocked look on our faces. 

As he continued telling us of those wretched convicts, I 
stared into the little hearth fire that merrOy flickered as it 
cooked our supper, and I saw dawn breaking away over the 
seas as the waves lifted the limbs of that silent figure, and 
laved the sad face of the dead escapee convict girl of Nuka 
Hiva. 

That surveillant's happy wife and their little girl, staring 
at me with wondering eyes, only intensified the pathos of 
the scene that my imagination had conjured up. 

I also had been to Noumea and seen those poor convicts, 
the dead still toiling in chains, while some were fast asleep 
under their little cross in the cemetery just by : " Ici re- 
pose Mercedes , Decede I'age " O terrible, name- 
less epitaphs ! 

Ah ! reader, have you read The Prisoner ofChillon ? Yes ? 
Well, you may consider it a passionate poem of reflective 
longing as compared to the great unwritten poem about 
the prisoners of Noumea. If Byron had been able to see 
Noumea he would never have worried about Greece or 
Chillon, but would have sat down and outrivalled Dante's 
Inferno with a New Caledonian Inferno — I'll swear. 

I've seen the slaves of conventionality incarcerated in the 
strongholds of Christian cities ; dragged through London in 
the prison-van — called the workman's train — handcuffed by 
the official grip of the twelve commandments of the book of 
civilisation, their dead eyes staring, still alive, and the grip of 
iron-mouthed starvation of the soul and body on their brows 

217 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

and limbs. But that sight was as nothing compared to the 
wretchedness of those poor wretches in Noumea who had 
failed to comply with the laws of equity and justice of 
La Belle France. 

" They look like convicts, don't they ? It's printed on 
their faces ! " said a comrade of mine, once, as we were led, 
by the officials, down that terrible Madame Tussaud's of 
the South Seas — a monstrous show where the figures stood 
before one with blinking, glassy eyes, men stone dead, 
standing upright in their shrouds, undecayed, though buried 
for years ! 

" Yes, they do look like convicts," said I, wondering what 
I would look like with head shaved, face saffron-hued, front 
teeth knocked out by some zealous official, an infinity of 
woe in my eyes, No. 1892 on the lapel of my convict 
suit, my back bent with what memories. Yes, I felt that 
I should be slightly changed. I felt I should not have 
looked like a saint. I had some idea that I should be an 
extremely vicious-looking convict. But there, why worry ? 
They have never caught me at anything yet. 

But to return to oLir French host. That night my com- 
rade and I slept in a little off-room together. It was pitch 
dark in that stuffy chamber. My friend went to sleep soon 
after he had finished his cigarette and I was left alone with 
my thoughts, that strayed to the convict settlement in 
La Nouvelle. 

I imagined that I saw the convict prisoner awaiting his 
last sunrise : I saw the gloomy corridors that lead out to 
the presence of that vast tin-opener, that knife that lifts 
the hatchway of immortality with one swift slide — the 
guillotine. 

I saw the convict's haggard face and trembling figure as 
he stood, at last, before that dreadful cure for insomnia. 
There he stood, awaiting death, as the dawn crept higher 
and higher on the sea's horizon. Already the pale eastern 
flush had struck the palms on the hill-tops of that isle and 
lit up the faces of the huddled surveillants who awaited the 
fall of the knife. 

Yes, I saw that scene. The thought of the headless body 

218 



I DIE ON THE GUILLOTINE 

and the blood was nothing to me. It was the victim's 
agony, the thought of the mind's attempt to grasp, to com- 
prehend, its extermination, then the last thought of — God 
knows who. It was this that made my heart go out to 
him, for I knew that I might have been in his place if I 
had had his same chances. 

As these things haunted my brain, the world took on a 
nightmare form. In that strange, intense reality that comes 
to one in dreams, when things are more vivid than when we 
are awake, I felt all that convict's thoughts — I became him. 

I looked on the world for the last time. They led me 
forth : I heard the last bird singing in the coco-palms. I 
felt that I deserved death by that atrocious blade ; I could 
not remember the crime, but it was sufficient that I had 
displeased Man. The knife looked down at me, wriggled, 
seemed to grin and clink out in this wise : 

" Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Thou hast displeased thy fellow-beings 
— they who never sinned — thou must die ! " 

In some mysterious way my mother, Pauline and Waylao 
became mixed up, became one personality. I looked into 
those eyes for the last time. 

" Will you remember me ? " I sobbed, as I clasped some 
figure of infinite beauty in my arms. Then I gazed at the 
rising sun, for with the first sight of its rim on the horizon 
I must die. 

God Almighty ! the signal came — the day was born. 
They clutched me. I gave a terrible yell. " Mon dieu ! 
Mcrci ! Merci ! " It was my last appeal to man on earth, 
my last yell — in vain. 

Crash went my foot, bang went my fist as I struck out. 
Then I heard the Knut's eyeglass clink on his little bed-rail 
as he stuck it on and tried to peer at me through the gloom. 
Ah ! what music was in the sound of that little clink of 
the eyeglass. 

"It's nothing, dear old pal," said I, as I felt an intense 
affection for his presence. "I was only dreaming of those 
native girls in the lagoon. " As I said this, I heard him yawn 
and snuggle down in the sheet again, to sleep. Then he 
drawled out sleepily : " What figures they had, what virginal 

219 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

curves, dear bhoy ; no wonder that you dream of them. 
I hope the plates will turn out well." Then he mumiured 
"Good-night." 

" Good-night," I responded, then I too fell asleep. 

I see by my diary that my tourist friend's heart belied 
his cold-looking monocle considerably, for here's the entry 
of that date : 

" R — — gave me £5. Feel very wealthy. Left French 
ex-official's homestead and started on our tramp towards 
Suva. Came across several groups of huts under the bread- 
fruit trees by place called Na Nda. The inhabitants worked 
on the sugar plantations some distance away. They were 
a very cheerful community and greeted my comrade and I 
with loud cheers of ' Vinaka ! ' and other joyous Fijian 
salutations. I suppose they guessed that my pal had plenty 
of cash. He's dressed like a nabob : grey, fluffy suit, tremen- 
dous white collar and a pink tie. Also wears yellow boots. 
I think it was the eyeglass that inspired respect even more 
than the neck-tie. 

"We stopped at these little native villages for the rest of 
the day and all night. Had wonderful experiences with the 
camera ; caught more girls bathing — little mites about three 
or four years of age. We stood the camera up on its tripod 
and told them to stand in a row. They thought that the 
camera was some terrible three-legged cannon — all suddenly 
rushed away with fright, screaming. Took a splendid photo- 
graph of them in flight, ere they disappeared under the 
forest palms. 

" Saw thousands of red land crabs near the banks of the 
lagoons. As we approached they marched away in vast 
battalions and entrenched themselves in rock crevices. 

" Had late dinner with a native chief and his wife. Nice 
old chap, had intelligent face ; if his lips had not been quite so 
thick he would have resembled Gladstone, the great English 

statesman. R and I squatted on mats before him in 

the native fashion and ate fish and stewed fruit off little 
wooden platters. Delicious repast ; couldn't stand the kava 
(native wine) offered us ; we spat it out, much to host's disgust. 

220 



AN ENGLISH IDOL 

"A pretty Fijian girl, who was supposed to be connected 
by blood to some great Tongan prince, came in from the hut 
opposite and proved most entertaining. She sang native 
melodies to us and danced. . 

" R said she would make a fortune at the Tivoli. She 

was dressed in a robe made of the finest material, fastened 
on by a girdle of grass and flowers. The robe just reached 

to her knees. R said that the knees alone were worth 

photographing. He is full of sunny humour. She got a 
splinter in one of her toes. R — — fixed his monocle on and 
probed away at the toe till he got it out. Never saw such 
perfect feet, olive-brown and as soft as velvet. Terrible 
hot night ; tried to sleep out beneath some palm-trees ; made 
a beautiful bed of moss and grass but couldn't sleep. Both 
jumped up and found that a modern semi-heathen, semi- 
Christian ceremony was in progress. It's what they called 

the Meke dance, I think. R and I crept under the 

palms to see the sight. It was a magical scene to see those 
maids and handsome Fijian youths dressed in their barbaric, 
picturesque costumes as they did a barbaric two-step. 

"We got into conversation with some of the old chiefs 
who were squatting in a semicircle gazing on the dance. 

" They told us that it wasn't a barbarian dance at all, but 
simply the anniversary of the time when they were converted. 
As the night wore on the elders got convivial and drank 
kava out of a large calabash and joined in that extraordinary 
religious ceremony. Many of the thanksgiving high kicks 
made my pal hold on to me tightly and gasp. We felt quite 
sure that something must go, either a joint get out of its 
socket or a limb snap. The little Fijian kiddies that were 
watching my comrade stare through his eyeglass screamed 
with delight and danced around us. They thought he was 
some kind of an English idol. The grand finale of that 
festival is indescribable. 

" All I can say of the impression left on my memory is, that 
it seemed to be some kind of ecclesiastical can-can, some 
strange potpourri of Catholicism, Protestantism, Moham- 
medanism, Buddhism and reminiscent heathenism flavoured 
with a dash of revelry. 

221 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

''Sunday. — Arrived at Suva. Went up to the Parade 
and made inquiries, hoping to hear something of Waylao. 
All I could hear was the voice of Mr and Mrs Pink singing in 
the mission-room that adjoined their store. 

" ' You holy beggars ! ' I thought to myself. ' I pray 
God that I may never become religious.' 

" My comrade took me up to the White Hotel. Had a 
good time as far as times go when you've trouble on your 
mind. 

" Cannot make out what has become of Waylao. Wonder- 
ing if she has committed suicide. Feel down in the mouth. 

" I feel lost without seeing Waylao. She's my romance." 

I see by my next entry in my diary that the Knut left 
Suva on the following Wednesday, so that we were together 
for three days on arriving at Suva. I was very sorry to 
part with him ; he was a good friend and cheered me up 
by his entertaining ways. Ere he left me he got slightly 
infatuated with a tourist girl he had met on the Victoria 
Parade. She had dropped her handkerchief and he picked 
it up. I recall her well. She was a horsey-looking being. 
Her name was Julia. The last I saw of them together was 
on the highroad near Suva. He was ogling Julia through 
his glass ogle as he strolled by her side. I hope he got 
well out of his love dilemma, for though he was a good chap, 
he did not strike me as one who would care for so serious- 
looking a catch as Miss Julia. Though he sneered at my 
romantic ways, he was really full of sentiment. I remember 
he helped me get my violin out of pawn, and then made me 
sit up all night playing sentimental songs of the homeland. 

I never saw him again after he left Suva. Probably a 
further account of his doings can be found in some published 
book of South Sea Reminiscences. I know that he intended 
to write down his adventures in the South Seas, and include 
as illustrations those photographs that I have described. 

I sometimes wonder if I am in his book. If so, I suppose 
he has got me down as some mysterious individual full of 
romance ; one who tried to convince him that he was a 
prince travelling incognito, searching for a dusky princess* 

222 



CHAPTER XXII 

I lead a Gaff-house Orchestra — News of Waylao — The Matafas — 
Tamafanga's Love Songs — My Sacred Gift to my Host and 
Hostess — I sail with Tamafanga for Nuka Hiva — The Storm — 
The End of Tamafanga's Quest — Celestial Protection for Bugs 

AFTER the Knut and his camera left me I became 
shghtly depressed. 
I see by the entry in my diary of that date that 
I had just got five shilUngs in my exchequer when I decided 
to leave Suva. 

Other entries show that I made several efforts to trace 
Waylao, also that it was necessary to fall back on my 
musical accomplishments in order to exist on something 
more appetising than coco-nuts. There's nothing like an 
empty stomach to make a man play the violin in public. 
The romance and glory of Southern Seas are apt to fade 
away before the grey dawn of cold hunger. I vividly recall 
the engagements that I secured, and the white barbarian 
ladies as they lifted their delicate mumus. It is true enough 
that those ridis reached to their ankles ; but I soon sickened 
of the amorous flutterings of those diaphanous, gaudy robes 
as the figures they swathed whirled and swished beneath the 
lamplit halls of that Suva gaff-house. 

I half made up my mind to go back to England and settle 
down. 

Why roam the world ? Why seek further for my missing 
comrade ? What could I do if I discovered her ? I could 
not alter things or change her evil destiny. Such were my 
reflections as I stuck to my job, and led the scratch orchestra 
in that gaff-house after roaming the world in search of fame 
and fortune. 

I thought of the sunless, songless skies of England. I 
pictured my home-coming and the sight on the faces of my 
family on the wharf, when I, the prodigal son, returned from 

223 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

wanderings in distant lands to retrieve the family's fortunes. 
I had many misgivings as to the reception of myself and my 
worldly goods, which make the show in rhyme as follows : — • 

Oh ! hear of my dreams of long ago, when I seized the splendid 

chance, 
When I sailed across the homeless seas for the isles of dim romance ! 
Away to the lands of far-away, to the dim great Make-believe : 
And what was the fortune that I made — what deeds did I achieve ? 
(Though goodly was my heritage to the ends of all the earth) 
Though I sang wild songs as our ship rolled home, O men, hear of 

my worth — 
Weighed down with rhjnnes and fearful crimes, sun-tanned and 

deadly sane. 
Face yellowish-brown — one bad half-crown and a monkey on a 

chain ! 

Such was my success. Even the monkey died before I 
left Suva. But I was rich in experience. 

The very sight of ugly Suva city, with its wooden dwarf 
houses, stinks and mosquitoes, inspired me to seek for 
change. 

Then it came again like a fever raging in my blood ; it 
was the call of the wild, echoing through my dreams. As I 
lay unsleeping in the vermin-haunted bunk of that wretched 
hovel wherein I dwelt, that call in my blood seemed somehow 
to echo from the lost Waylao's sorrow. 

I arose like one in a dream. I would seek the wilds, the 
forest and seas again, and only dream of England's skies. 

Such were the reflections that I recall as I look back across 
the track of the years to my glorious vagabond pilgrimage, 
back to the sun-kissed bosom of the wilds, back to the 
starlit, tropical nights of eyes and fragrant lips, to the sea 
foams, the scented, dusky hair of my beloved South — my 
love of other days. 

In looking back, how different seem the dreams that were 
once ours. The present seems a daub, it has no perspective 
of its own, it is like the raw colours of the aspiring artist 
ere he spreads them on the canvas and the picture slowly 
shapes itself from his creating brain. How beautiful are 
the paintings of rosy horizons of To-morrows — how trans- 

224 



DESTINY'S MASTERPIECES 

figured, how rare and beautiful are those wonderful master- 
pieces of— Sad Yesterdays. 

Ah ! Waylao, you are the embodied phantom of my dreams. 
To-day I sit in sorrow and mix my colours, and toil away 
as I paint you, both as you were and as you appear now. 
You are my impassioned mistress of the South. In dreams 
I gaze into your starlit eyes ; I breathe through your dis- 
hevelled, scented tresses, and sing into your shell-like ears 
the songs that I loved. 

Ah I Waylao, outcast of the mysterious South, our lips 
have met in comradeship as we wept together— not you and 
I alone, but with all your race. 

You once loved the songs of my homeland, as I once loved 
and cherished the wild, impassioned songs of your sunny 
isles. Ambushed in your warm, impulsive clasp, I have 
heao-d the moaning waves wailing, breaking over the coral 
reefs, tossing their arms with laughter, like the dusky 
children of those wDd shores. You have haunted me in 
long, long dreams through the night, as I slept by the 
banyans of the moonlit shore. Soft-footed you crept out 
of the shadows and sang your magical melodies into my 
sleeping ears. And Pauline would come too, the beloved 
maid of the Western Seas. Ah, how oft did she creep up 
the moonlit shores to lie in my arms as I slept, and sing 
the dear homeland songs through my dreams— dreams of 
England. 

Do I speak in enigmas ? Few may understand all that I 
mean, nor do I wish them to understand. 

Ah ! Pauline, how your eyes haunted me in those sleepless 
nights of the far-away years ; and still they haunt me— yes, 
with all the songs that once you sang to me. I often wonder 
if I imagined that shadow of yourself that ran singing beside 
me as I tramped, and sailed from isle to isle, on those knight- 
errant quests, searching for Waylao. 

It seemed too vivid to be only a dream when I awoke in 
the lonely nights of the forest dark and heard you whisper 
in my ears, calling me back to Tai-o-hae. 

I know that even Waylao was haunted by thoughts of 
you, of your pale, beautiful face ; for did you not sing those 



--':> 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

songs to us as we three sat by the lagoon near your drunken 
English father's home ? 

Where are those songs now — songs that made me feel the 
glorious romance of all that I dreamed long ago, ere I put 
out my hands to clutch the stars and plucked — dead leaves ? 

I must not dream. I recall how depressed I felt when 
I left that gaff-hole. My only companion, who shared my 
lodgings, was a strange old man, a retired sailor and trader. 
He would lie in bed beside me cursing all living and dead 
missionaries the whole night long. I never discovered the 
cause of this intense hatred of his for those much-maligned 
men. Each night he knelt beside our sleeping-couch and 
prayed fervently. 

"Why do you pray, since you are always cursing every- 
body, and especially missionaries ? " I inquired curiously, 
as he fell on his knees. 

He lifted his wrinkled physiognomy, gazed solemnly 
upon me, and said : 

" Boy, I pray to my Maker each night, begging Him to 
save me from ever becoming religious ! " 

The foregoing is about all that I remember of that sarcastic 
old man. I bade him farewell, and left those lodgings. 
Then I went down to the few trading boats in Suva Harbour, 
hoping to secure a berth on one that was bound for the 
Marquesas Group. One three-masted schooner was almost 
ready to leave for sea. She was bound for Apia (Samoa). 
Whilst waiting to see the skipper, who was ashore, I strolled 
into the forecastle, and so by the merest chance heard the 
sailors talking about an interesting incident of the previous 
voyage. Their conversation was about a pretty girl — a 
stowaway. 

One may easily imagine my eagerness as I immediately 
inquired and found beyond a doubt that I had come across 
news of Waylao. 

Yes, on that very schooner Waylao had stowed away 
after arriving back in Suva from her mad journey up to 
N . 

I gathered, from all that the sailors told me, that Waylao 

226 



THE DESERTED SOUTH 

had arrived back in Suva a fearful wreck. Having tramped 

nearly all the way round the coast from N her feet were 

bleeding. Indeed, when the kindly sailors had discovered 
the girl huddled away on deck, they were horrified at her 
condition. 

As I found out after, it was very probable that, had not a 
native woman in Suva taken pity on the girl, fed her and 
given her some decent clothing, she would most likely have 
given up all hope and ended her life. 

Though this kindly disposed Fijian woman had done all 
that her meagre resources would allow her to do for the 
distressed castaway, still, Waylao had been inconsolable. 
As the old Fijian herself told me, all that the girl seemed to 
want was to get on a boat that was bound for Nuka Hiva. 
It was this strong and natural yearning for home that took 
her to the ships. It appeared, from her own story, that 

as she stood beside the schooner H she had asked some 

native children where the boat was bound for. On hearing 
that it was bound for Samoa, and then on to the far Mar- 
quesan Isles, she had stowed away. It was not a difficult 
matter in those days, for girls so seldom stowed away that 
one could wander aboard without causing suspicion. 

Waylao took good care not to hide in the vessel's hold 
this time, for they found her peeping with frightened eyes 
behind some orange-cases on deck ere they had been to sea 
forty-eight hours. 

" How was it ? Tell me all about it ? " said I to the sailor 
who had discovered the girl. 

" Why, we had just got out to sea, when I was a-standing 
on deck talking to my mate there. ' What's that ? ' says I, 
as I 'card a rustling behind the deck cargo. 

" ' Rats ! ' he says to me. Then I looks round and, strike 
me lucky ! if I didn't see a pair of the prettiest frightened eyes 
peeping up at me through the chink of an empty orange- 
case ! 

"Well, I looks down at them 'ere eyes, and says to my 
mate : ' Strike me lucky ! if it ain't a beautiful gal, a stowaway 
— ^and, phew ! what eyes ! Hallo, missie ! W'ere yer sprung 
from ? ' says I. The skipper was at that moment tramping to 

227 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

and fro on the poop. He's a nasty old man, so as she gazed 
up at us, me and my mate sees how things were, so I whispers 
to her and says : ' Keep still, girl, till the Old Man's out of 
sight, and we'll slip you into the forecastle ! ' 

"It wasn't long before we saw our chance. 'Come on, 
missie,' says I. Gawd ! you oughter 'ave seen her blood- 
stained feet, as we sneaked across the deck and into the 
boatswain's cabin, for we had taken him into our confidence. 

" You should 'ave seen that poor devil's grateful eyes as we 
trimmed her up, gave her food and did our level best to make 
her comfortable." 

As the sailor spoke, I sawWaylao's eyes quite plain enough. 

"What happened then ? " I said, as we walked ashore, 
for that sailor and I became pally. 

In the little saloon near the wharf at Suva we sat together 
as he continued to tell all that I was so deeply anxious to 
hear. 

It wanted deeper duplicity, a greater actor than I, to 
disguise my interest in that unknown stowaway girl, as I 
drew out all I could from that unsophisticated sailorman. 

Suddenly he looked at me steadily ; then, giving me a 
confidential, half-serious wink, he said : 

"Trust me for keeping mum — you knows more about 
that gal than I do ! Eh, mate ? " 

" Well, you're right there, but it's not exactly as you may 
think. I, like you, met her at sea as a stowaway." 

Saying this, I at once proceeded to tell him how we had 
discovered Waylao on the Sea Swallow. 

He looked almost incredulously at me as I told him as 
much as I wished to tell ; but my manner eventually quite 
convinced him. 

It was then I heard that when Waylao had arrived at 
Samoa the boatswain had slipped her ashore and left her 
in the care of two natives that he knew well. Samoans 
they were, Mr and Mrs Matafa. 

One can hunt the world over and not find better-hearted 
men than real sailormen. I learnt that the boatswain had 
made a collection amongst the crew for the benefit of the 
homeless castaway. Indeed they had done all in their 

228 



GODLY HEATHENS 

power to cheer her up and alleviate her distress and stop 
the tears that came when she discovered that the schooner 
was not going on to the Marquesas. They had assured 
Waylao that many boats left Apia Harbour bound for 
Hivaoa and Nuka Hiva. 

The old Samoan couple, the Matafas, had welcomed 
Waylao with open arms. It so happened that they had 
lost a daughter who, had she lived, would have been about 
Waylao 's age. The old boatswain told me that the super- 
stitious natives looked at the girl with astonishment in 
their eyes, and wailed : " Ah, 'tis her, our lost child, our 
beautiful daughter ; the great gods have sent this wonderfully 
beautiful girl across the seas to us." Then they had both 
fallen on their knees and thanked the great god Pulutu. 
Ah ! Matafas, you dear old blessed heathens of the South, 
I thank the great God of this Infinite Universe of Inscrutable 
Wonder that you did not turn out like the sweet, Christian 
Pinks — the pious old humbugs of Suva township. 

I called on the Matafas long after my first visit, just as I 
had called on the old hag Pink. But I did not hurt the 
old heathen chief's heart, or his dear wife's. What did I 
do ? Ah, well I remember the look on their faces as I said 
that the great heathen gods watched over them ; and she, 
the strange girl who had crept out of the seas to their arms, 
awaited their coming to the halls of shadow-land. It was 
then that they wailed like two children, laid their sinful 
heathen heads on the bench of their little parlour and wept. 
But I must not go ahead of all that I have set out to tell. 

As soon as that sailor had told me all about Waylao 's 
adventures, and acquainted me with the fact that she was 
stopping in Samoa, I made up my mind to get a berth if 
possible on the same boat. I was rewarded with success, 

for when the H- sailed out of Suva Harbour I was on 

board. 

I see by my diary notes that we had a very rough passage 
across, and did not arrive at Apia till we were a week over- 
due. 

It was after sunset when we anchored in that crescent- 
shaped harbour off Apia. I vividly remember the scene, 

229 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

and hubbub of the clamouring natives as they swarmed 
about our schooner in their strange, outrigged canoes. 

Samoa is a kind of Italy of the Southern Seas. The people 
of those palm-clad isles seem to be ever singing. They 
sing as they paddle, they sing as they toil, they sing as they 
beg and in their huts, or under the palms, they sing them- 
selves to sleep. 

The very speech of the Samoans is sweet and musical. 
Their fine eyes beam with lustrous light, as though, in making 
them, God touched their vision with a little spare starlight. 
I never saw such physiques, the Marquesans excepted. 
Clambering out of their outrigged canoes on to the shore, 
or stalking beneath the coco-palms, they looked like bronzed 
Grecian statues of shapely Herculean art, statues that could 
come down from their pedestals and roam beneath the forest 
palms at will. 

It was late that night when I at last got ashore. In the 
distance glimmered a few dim lights in Apia's old township, 
and as I walked under the palms I heard the guttural voices 
of the Germans who passed by going back to their ship in 
the bay. 

I will not weary my reader over the trouble I had to 
find the home of the Matafas who dwelt near Apia. When 
the old Samoan chief, under whose protection the boat- 
swain of the H had placed Waylao, lifted his hands 

and looked despairingly at me, I could have dropped from 
disappointment. 

"Ah, the beautiful, strange girl from the big waters, she 
gone ! " he said, when I eventually let out the reason for 
my coming to his humble little homestead. I must 
admit that at first I wondered if the old chief was deceiv- 
ing me, but as he stood there, under the flamboyant tree, 
he looked earnest enough, and so my disappointment was 
complete. 

It was some time before I could get out of the old native 
exactly all that had occurred, for, like all his race, he beat 
about the bush in all manner of ways ere he came to the 
main point. But so as not to beat about the bush myself, 
I will say at once that Waylao had stopped with them for 

230 



A SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD 

three weeks ; and one morning when they had gone to 
awaken her they found she had flown. 

Old Matafa was a Samoan of the good old school. 
Although Christianised and extremely devout in his 
exclamations about the new creed, still, deep in his heart, 
he nursed the old memories of the heathen gods. 

The great South Seas' deities, Pulutu and Tama and 
Tangaloa (god of the skies), were words that ever came from 
his lips in the form of oaths whilst talking to me. He 
rejoiced in the title of O Le Tui Atua, which meant that he 
was an erstwhile chief of the highest and most sacred rank. 
His little hut home was not far from the native village of 
Satufa. I had seldom seen a finer or more majestic -looking 
chief than Matafa. When I first interviewed him, he rose 
from his squatting mat and stood erect before me. His 
chest swelled out to its full proportions, so that the armorial 
bearings of elaborate tattoo were shown to their best advan- 
tage. As I told him the cause of my visit his face grew 
serious, his eyes gazed at me curiously. When he quite 
understood me, he went to his hut door and called out : 
"Tamafanga! Tamafanga ! " In a few moments a 
handsome Samoan youth came rushing out of the little 
hut that was just opposite the Matafas' homestead. 

" Tamafanga, you read that and tell me what it say." 

Tamafanga, who had been taught English in the mission 
classes, took the note that had been given me by the boat- 
swain of the H , and slowly read it. When he had at 

length translated it into the Samoan tongue for the benefit 
of the old chief, Matafa's manner completely changed. In 
a moment he was all attention and looked at me with deep 
respect. 

"Alofa! Papalagi ! " said he, at once offering me a 
squatting mat. 

Evidently he and that old boatswain were good pals. 
Probably the former had promised a tip to Matafa and had 
told him also that I was a true friend of Waylao's. 

As soon as I had taken up a squatting position on the great 
high-chief mat, the old man called out : " Fafine ! Matafa ! " 
Then for my special hearing he said aloud, in English : 

231 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Mrs Matafa ! 'Tis I who calls you, I your husband the 
great chief, O Le Tui Atua ! " 

Ere the echoes of the old Samoan's voice had died away, 
I heard a shuffling in the next compartment, that was 
separated from the main hut, then an old, but still hand- 
some native woman toddled into the hut and obsequiously 
approached the great " O Le Tui Atua." 

Ah ! she was a dear old soul, and though much wrinkled 
she still revealed in her tawny face the sad afterglow of 
her feminine beauty of other years. Though her eyes were 
sunken and weary-looking, they still retained much of the 
sweetness of the old light, the light that had long ago beamed 
on the face of her great chief, Matafa. 

When the old chief had told her why I was there she lifted 
her arms to the roof and wailed. By the light of the small 
coco-nut-oil lamp 1 saw how genuine was her grief over the 
disappearance of Waylao. Though that old mouth was 
quite toothless, and the amorous curves that had once im- 
paradised the heart of Matafa were shrivelled, still, I dis- 
cerned the tremulous quiver of sincere emotion on her lips. 

As I sat there with my legs crossed, and while the youth 
Tamafanga eyed me earnestly, the chief and his faithful 
wife told me their sad tale, how Waylao had come to them 
like some strange spirit girl out of the seas. Wail after wail 
trembled from their lips as they described how the girl had 
entered their desolate hearts and the great sorrow they 
experienced when they found that their beautiful visitor 
had flown. 

They told me how they had rushed about like two demented 
people, searching far and wide for the girl. 

" Tell me more," said I, as the old chief ess wiped her eyes 
and wailed. 

" Ah ! white mans, she always crying and saying that she 
want to go back across the seas to her peoples. We both 
much kind to her and say : ' You stop here and belonger to 
the great Matafas. We love you because you like our 
beautiful daughter who die long ago. Perhaps you her, 
come back ? ' " 

So mournfully rambled on the native woman as she told 

232 



SAMOAN SUPERSTITION 

me over and over again all they had said to Waylao in their 
pleadings that she might stop with them and become as a 
daughter. 

While all this gabbling was in progress, Tamafanga lifted 
his eyes to the roof of the hut and sighed. I gazed at him. 
He was a handsome youth, and by all his actions and im- 
pulsive remarks it was easy to see how his heart was where 
Waylao was concerned. 

I see by my diary that I stopped at the Matafas' for nearly 
three months before I got a ship again. In that period I 
learnt almost everything that was to be known about the 
missing castaway. 

It appeared that in the short time that Waylao had lived 
with the Matafas she had become known to all their friends 
and many of the village folk near by. By degrees I learnt 
that Waylao had been looked upon by the native girls and 
youths as some beautiful spirit girl from the Langi of 
Polotu (Samoan Elysium). For though the young natives 
were all Christianised, they still had great faith in their 
beautiful poetic mythology, and were extremely super- 
stitious. Nor is it to be wondered at, when people of the 
civilised cities believe in fortune-telling, spiritualistic seances 
and Old Moore^s Almanack ! 

Tamafanga and I became great friends. By night, when 
the old Matafas were snoring in the next compartment, we 
would sit together smoking. It was then that I discovered 
that Tamafanga was never tired of talking of the beautiful 
stranger — ^Waylao . 

He told me how she would sit by the Matafas' hut door 
and sing her native songs as she watched the sunset far away 
at sea. While Waylao sang and the old Matafas listened 
with joy, native girls and handsome youths would creep 
out from the shadow of the forest bamboos and coco-palms 
to gaze on the lovely stranger. 

" See how beautiful she is ! It is only a goddess that 
could have so beautiful a skin — that is neither white nor 
brown as our own. Besides, who but a daughter of the great 
god Tangaloa could sing so beautifully ? " 

So did the superstitious Samoan girls argue as they listened 

233 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

to Waylao as she sang to drown the bitterness of her 
misery. 

It appeared that she had become very attached to those 
pretty children of the forest. Indeed they too had come 
to love her in the little while that she stayed amongst them. 
As she sang they crept up to the hut, lifted her hands and 
knelt by her and placed hibiscus blossoms in her hair. 
Indeed Matafa's hut had become a sort of Mecca of romance. 

While I was with the Matafas, a native fau va'a (canoe 
builder) suddenly called on the old chief and told him that 
a canoe was missing from the beach for quite three weeks. 
It was this bit of news that upset the lot of us, for we all 
felt certain that the culprit who had taken the little craft 
was Waylao. And when the news came to that little 
primitive household, Mrs Matafa wailed. I, too, felt heavy 
at heart and Matafa, who had never tired of searching and 
inquiring, was as much upset as his wife, while Tamafanga 
squatted on his mat, put his handsome chin on his knees 
and cried like an infant. 

I tried hard to cheer them up, but it was a wretched, 
futile effort on my part, for I felt sure that Waylao had 
drifted away to sea and perished. Whether she had gone 
off deliberately or not, I could not tell then, but, soon enough, 
the reader shall know exactly what occurred. Indeed I 

heard the whole matter from the girl's lips when But 

it is not here that I must tell that sad tale. 

When Matafa saw my grief he gazed at me intently ; then 
he arose from his mat and, giving me a gentle nudge, passed 
out into the night. In a moment I followed the chief out 
into the brilliant moonlight. As I stood by him, leaning 
against a coco-palm smoking, he looked about him carefully, 
to see that no eavesdroppers were near. 

This secretive manner caused a great hope to spring up 
in my breast that perhaps he knew something about Waylao 
and was about to divulge it. Then the old chief sidled up 
to me and looked about once again, as my heart beat high 
with hope. Inclining his head, he whispered into my ear : 
"Master, O great Papalagi, art thou sorry for the girl ? " 

"I am," said I most fervently, not comprehending 

234 



MATAFA THE PENITENT 

the meaning of Matafa's mysterious manner. Then he 
continued : 

" You say nothing, but / understand, O Papalagi, allee 
samee ! You now very sorry. 'Tis you, O white mans, 
who would ask the beautiful girl whom we have lost to 
forgive you — and be yowcfafaine [wife] ? " 

In a flash I saw through the old native's meaning. 

" It is not that way that the wind blows, O great O Le 
Tui Atua," I said sternly, as the chief regarded me inter- 
rogatively. Then I proceeded : "I am a white man. Do 
you think that one of my race would be guilty of that which 
you have so vilely insinuated ? " Though I said this, I felt 
sadly amused at the old fellow's suspicions. But he took my 
reply seriously, my manner convincing him of his mistake. 

" O noble white mans, I am ole Samoan fool. To doubt a 
white man's honour proves that I am still heathen." 

" Wail not, O noble Matafa, O great chief, say not that 
you deserve death, for it has been known, even in my country, 
that such-and-such a man has betrayed a maid." 

Poor old Matafa was delighted when I took his hand and 
truly forgave him. After that confidential talk we became 
true pals, indeed he opened his heart to me. He would 
never tire of talking about Waylao — in some ways he was 
worse than Tamafanga. 

"Ah, white mans," he would say, "I did peep through 
the chink of the screen that divided our chamber from the 
beautiful Waylao's, and never did I see so sweet a sleeping 
goddess." Then he would twirl his fingers, as he rolled a 
cigarette, and sigh heavily as though his heart said : " Why 
should old eyes dare admire the beauty of a maid ? Has not 
Mrs Matafa been a good and faithful wife ? " 

Poor Matafa, he was truly virtuous, good to the backbone. 
He possessed the inherent virtue of the highest races of 
mankind ; for, notwithstanding his reflections, he would 
never really have done any harm to the unfortunate girl 
beneath his roof. 

I did my best to cheer up my kind hosts. I recall how I 
took them to a festival one night. It was some kind of 
carnival near Safuta Harbour, and was very similar to 

235 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

the festival scenes which I have already described in my 
Marquesan reminiscences. The memory of it all seems to 
be some dim recollection of a wonderful faeryland of song. 
For the Samoans are the greatest singers on earth. As the 
dancers whirled about on the stage platform, their figures 
were lit up by a hundred coco-nut-oil lamps that hung on 
the branches of the bread-fruits. Tamafanga and I strolled 
about, half wondering if we would meet Waylao amongst 
that hilarious mass of dusky beings. Though we had in- 
quired everywhere and heard that a canoe was missing the 
same night as Waylao had disappeared, still, we had hopes 
that she might have returned to the isle again. 

Those picturesque Samoan maids looked more like fairies 
than earthly beings, as they crept out of the shade of the 
moonlit palms to stare at us. I never remember a more 
bewitching sight than when the sea wind tossed up their 
masses of glorious, coral-lime-dyed hair. But some did not 
use the dye that turned their naturally dark tresses to a 
bright golden hue, and this made a delightful contrast as they 
strolled about in groups together, rich scarlet blossoms in 
their tresses and adorning their delicate tappa gowns. 

Tamafanga would never cease singing as he roamed by 
my side. He had heard me play the violin and so thought 
that I was never so happy as when he sang to me. I recall 
how he took me up into the most beautiful parts near Apia 
to show me the scenery. I often stood on those slopes by 
night and watched the dim lamps far below on Apia's only 
street. As I write I seem to live again in the past. Once 
more Tamafanga and I stand together beneath the palms 
and watch the stars shining over the distant sea. All the 
birds of the forest are silent, only the songs of a few sailors 
in the beach shanty break the stillness. As I dream on, 
Vaea's mountain-peak rises to the skies as the moon looms 
up far out at sea. Only the beautiful tavau-trees and 
plumed palms move as the sea winds touch them. As I 
watch, that height is no longer a mountain, it is the vast, 
solitary tomb of Robert Louis Stevenson. Far below, old 
Vailima (his late Samoan home) still has a light shining in 
its lonely verandah window ; shadows still move in those 

236 



THE POETRY OF NATURE 

wooden walls which he had built, but the master is far away 
up there, high above the Road Of The Loving Heart, fast 
asleep in that mighty tomb, as through the windows of 
heaven shine his eternal lamps — the stars. 

Tamafanga sings by my side. I can see the ineffable, 
greenish flush of the dim sea horizons. By Mulinuu Point 
lie a few schooners, their canvas sails hanging like broken 
wings in the moonlit, windless air. 

I am now alone, for I have sent Tamafanga down into 
Apia town to buy a little gift for the kind-hearted Matafas. 
As I stand there, awaiting my fiiend's return, I recall all 
that has been and all that must have been in days gone by. 
It is on those wild shores, kissed by the whitened surfs, that 
the old Samoan kings met and discussed their various rights 
to the throne. I think of the laughter of the white men and 
their wives in that big wooden house in the hills. It was 
there where the Great Tusitala (writer of stories) welcomed 
the men who came across the seas to visit him. 

As I still dream on and look about on the glorious light 
of che night skies, I seem to breathe in the very poetry of 
nature. Over my head the beautiful bread-fruit trees and 
plumed palms wave their richly adorned branches. The 
deep, primeval silence, only disturbed by the cry of the 
solitary Mamoa uli bird, seems to steal into my very being. 
I can smell the wild, rich odour of the forest, as the night's 
faint breath steals from the hollows, laden with scented 
whiffs from the decaying tropical flowers and the damp 
undergrowth, that, a few hours before, was pierced by 
glorious sunlight and musical with bees. Suddenly I hear 
the sound of soft-footed feet, then a burst of song — it is 
Tamafanga. He has returned with the present. 

When we arrived back again at the hut, old Matafa and 
his wife rushed to the door to greet me. 

"Matafa," I said, "you have befriended her whom I 
loved, and so I now give unto thee that which the gods 
have sent you, through the tenderness of my heart." With 
delight they both stared at me, their eyes were alive, shining 
with gratitude as they put forth their hands and clutched 
the le oloa (sacred gift) — a bottle of the best unsweetened 

237 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

gin. I felt that it was wrong to give them that stimulant 
after the fifty years of missionaries' supreme efforts. But 
they were old, and I knew that even old people in the countries 
where the missionaries hailed from like and need a little 
invigorating stimulant to buck them up when they can ever 
hear that prophetic tapping — thump ! thump ! — as the 
kind gravedigger pats the soil down, nicely and neatly over 
their old, tired heads and cold hearts. 

We were all feeling sad that night, for I had at last secured 
a berth on a full-rigged ship that lay out in Apia Harbour. 
She was bound for Nuka Hiva and San Francisco. 

I had promised the. Matafas that I would return again 
some day. 

" Cheer up," I said, and I told them that I had some idea 
that I would find the beautiful girl Waylao back in Nuka 
Hiva. At that they clapped their hands with delight, and 
then, alas ! the reaction set in and they wept. 

As we all sat there, and they imbibed the contents of that 
bottle of gin, Tamafanga sang to us. He reminded me very 
much of my dear dead comrade Hermionae the Marquesan. 
As he sang, and the lights burnt low, his eyes shone with 
light, for he was happy with the thought that he was going 
away on the big sea with me. For Tamafanga had gone on 
board the Rockhampton directly he heard that I had got a 
berth and asked for a job as deck hand — and had secured one. 

The Matafas were very sorry to find that he was going 
with me ; but I had promised to look after him and he had 
promised them that, if he ever saw Waylao in Hivaoa, he 
would persuade her to return to them. 

As we sat there together, for the last night, for the ship 
sailed next day, the old Matafas sobbed as their Tamafanga 
sang. His song was one of longing, for his head was full of 
the romantic idea that he was going away across the big seas 
to search for the beautiful Waylao. This is how it ran : 

' ' O eyes of the night, O voice of the winds, 
Beautiful are the dreams of love. 
Sweet are the sounds of deep -moving waters 
And the sight of the stars over the mountains : 
But, oh, how glorious is the light of a maiden's eyes ! 
Eyes that we cannot see — only remember." 
238 



TAMAFANGA SEEKS ROMANCE 

So did the handsome Samoan sing as I played the vioHn 
in that Httle hut by Salufata village. As the night grew 
old, the Matafas laid their heads on the table and wailed : 
"O noble white mans, bring back to us the beautiful 
white girl, the stranger that came to us from out of the 
seas," 

I slept little that night as I lay beside Tamafanga in 
the little room next to the Matafas, who, thanks to the 
unsweetened gin, slept soundly. 

I was anxious to get back to Tai-o-hae. I thought of 
Grimes, I longed to hear his cheery voice again and to see 
the old faces. What had happened when Benbow came 
back and heard all about Waylao ? Was the old cottage 
still on the slope with its little chimney smoking as of old ? 
Did old Lydia still watch for Waylao 's return, or was the 
girl back there ? " Such were my reflections as I lay on 
that mat, sleepless, in Matafa's hut. 

Next day, when I went aboard the s.s. Rockhampton, the 
crew stared with astonishment to see my obsequious retinue, 
for Mr and Mrs Matafa had made up their minds to come 
and see us off. I did my best to dissuade them, but it was 
no use — come they would ! 

As I strode up the gangway from the outrigger canoe that 
took us out, Tamafanga followed close behind me, carrying 
my violin. Behind him came the Matafas. Mrs Matafa's 
arms were crammed with bunches of bananas and other 
delicious fruits. Old Matafa had attired himself in his full 
costume of sacred chiefdom. He was bare to the waist, 
but about his loins was the gorgeous swathing that repre- 
sented the Samoan's royal insignia of knighthood. I must 
say he looked a handsome old fellow as he jumped down 
on the sailing-ship's deck and stalked majestically behind 
me, carrying his huge war-club which, decorated with many 
jewels, showed his high degree. The sailors, mostly Yankees, 
grinned from ear to ear as I wished the chief and his wife 
good-bye. 

" Clear off ! " shouted the chief mate as the tug took us 
in hand. 

When the Matafas saw that we were really off they 

239 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

commenced wailing in a most pathetic manner. Tamafanga 
prostrated himself at their feet and wailed too. It was 
nothing much to see those old Samoans wail and cry out, 
beating their hands all the time in anguish, for they mostly 
do that kind of thing when they bid anyone farewell. 

The chief mate caught poor Tamafanga by the fold of his 
old coat and told him to " get off and do his work." 

Mr and Mrs Matafa stood up in the outrigged canoe and 
waved their hands till our ship rounded the point, and we 
put out to sea. So did I leave Apia, with Tamafanga as a 
shipmate, boimd for Nuka Hiva. 

We had not been to sea more than two days when they 
put Tamafanga in the galley to help the cook. They found 
that he was no earthly use on deck. He was for ever singing, 
but the cook was a good fellow and did not seem to mind 
so long as Tamafanga washed the pans and peeled the spuds 
properly. He had a bunk amidships, near mine in the deck- 
house. He sang all night long, as well as all through the 
day. Indeed he never seemed to want to sleep. 

" Tamafanga," I said, " it's true that you know that I am 
fond of music, but do you think that it's right to sit on the 
side of my bunk singing when I am trying to get to sleep ? " 

He hung his head and looked like a whipped hound as I 
said that to him. I felt more ashamed at heart than he 
did, as I added quickly : " Tamafanga, I know that your 
voice is beautiful, but it is really necessary to sleep when I 
come below. I am not a Samoan, I am only a sleepy- 
headed white man, see ? Tamafanga, old pal, that makes 
all the difference." 

" Master, I promise that I will only sing four hours in the 
evening, as you wish," and then, saying this to me, he burst 
into song on the spot, though he promised to sing no more 
that night. 

All the sailors liked Tamafanga. One night they gave him 
some rum. They deceived him by saying : " Tamafanga, 
you sing so beautifully that we have decided to give you 
this nice stuff, which is specially prepared for the voice. 
You will sing like a blackbird after you drink that." 

" What's a blackbird ? " said he. 

240 



CROSSING THE WINE-DARK SEAS 

" You'll hear and know I guess," said the sailor, as he 
coaxed and, at length, lured Tamafanga to drink the grog. 

After he had taken that potion, he clapped his hands 
and sang till the forecastle echoed with song and wild 
laughter. 

I am afraid I laughed too, for poor Tamafanga had never 
drunk rum before, and I never saw a fellow dance and somer- 
sault as he did that night. Suddenly he went on his knees 
before me and sang a weird song, ending up with an ex- 
temporisation to Waylao's eyes. 

Ah ! Tamafanga, when I think of all that happened after, 
my heart bleeds. 

Next morning he had a face as long as a fiddle. The cook 
offered him some rum as a pick-me-up, but he shook his 
head fiercely. Wise youth ! 

The events of that voyage are fixed in my memory, I 
do not think anything on earth will make me forget all that 
happened. 

A week after we left Apia we were becalmed for many days. 
The heat was terrific. The pitch in the seams of the deck 
planks boiled and oozed out, and stuck to our bare feet as 
we trod the deck. 

Tamafanga seemed to be the only one who was cool : he 
cast off his old seaman's coat that he had bought at a store 
in Apia and reverted back to the primitive lava-lava. To 
tell the truth I envied that scanty attire. If we had been the 
only two on board as we lay becalmed in that infinite, glassy 
ocean I should have dressed in exactly the same fashion. 

After the first week of calm, a slight breeze came up after 
sunset and filled the sails, dragging us along about three or 
four knots, but at sunrise, up came the steaming vapours 
and down poured the terrific windless heat from the sky. 

The skipper trod the poop all day long, staring fiercely 
at the sky looking for wind. At length the weather im- 
proved, and we had a genuine trade- sky over us, just one or 
two wraith-like clouds sailing across illimitable blue as, with 
all sails set, we followed them as we rolled once more across 
the vast liquid blue, below. 

I recall the glorious tropical day that preceded the change 

Q 241 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

in the weather — and such a change ! The wind dropped 
again, the air was hot, almost thick with silence. As night 
fell, the sky pulsed with the ethereal energy of a thousand 
thousand stars. Suddenly it came — crash ! The storm 
seemed to break over that vast, silent tropic sea like an 
explosion : as though some terrific cataclysm had occurred 
out in the solar system and blown the western horizon out. 
I fancied I heard the tumultuous tottering of the heavens 
as that midnight hurricane smashed down upon us. 

" All hands on deck ! Shorten sail ! Aye there ! Let 
go ! " Boom ! Crash ! Then came muffled orders that the 
wind slashed into a thousand pieces ere they got clear from 
the Old Man's lips (he was an old man, too ; a grand white 
beard, wrinkled, sun-tanned face alight with keen, grey 
eyes). 

As we clung aloft, she gave a lurch to windward. A 
flash of brilliant lightning split the heavens in twain. It 
lit up the sea. Ye gods, what a sight ! It was like some 
vast Arctic Ocean of mountainous, pinnacled icebergs adrift, 
dancing with mad, chaotic delight, as they travelled away 
to the east ! As that flash came, I saw the heads of my 
comrades, their figures clinging on in a row up there high 
aloft. We looked like puppets clinging on a long stick that 
was dancing about up in the sky of that inky, black night. 

I felt my cap go. The wind ripped my hair, it seemed 
as though a fiercely thrust knife had whipped out of space 
and scalped me. 

Someone who clung just near me muttered a laboured 
oath. Then a voice, that seemed to be out somewhere in 
space, said : "Now we sha'n't be long ! " " Stow yer gab, 
yer son of a gun," said another sepulchral voice out in the 
black infinity. Crash ! We felt the vessel shiver as the seas 
broke over, then she lurched to windward. I felt sure that 
she was turning turtle. Up she came and righted herself 
as we grabbed the folds of the straining canvas in our fists. 
The flapping canvas and the rigging bellowed like monstrous 
living beings as we all clung aloft, far away up there in the 
chaos. Suddenly I clung on like grim death. I felt certain 
that the world had suddenly shifted its orbit and had taken 

242 



A CRY TO THE INFINITE 

a headlong plunge into infinite space. I turned my head 
and looked over my shoulder ; though the night was pitch 
black I saw it rise — a thundering, boiling mass of ocean 
ablaze with phosphorescent light. Up — up — it came. The 
Rockhampton shivered and crouched like a hunted, frightened 
stag of the ocean. Crash ! We had pooped a sea ! A moun- 
tain of seething, boiling water rushed along the deck and 
swept to the galley. I felt the stern sink to the weight of 
the water as the jib-boom stabbed the sky. Another crash ; 
the galley had been swept away and had crashed overboard 
like matchwood. The masts shivered, the night moaned. 
I clung to the fold of the sail with my fist, yes, tight with 
fright. I think if I had gone before my Maker that next 
moment — as I expected to — I should have still been clutch- 
ing that little bit of dirty, wet canvas in my hand — the last 
remnant of sweet mortality ! 

I heard a faint cry : it came from somewhere out in 
the storm-stricken night. What was it, I wondered. It 
seemed to stab my heart. Then the terrific roar of the 
night, the moan of the seas below and the thunder of the 
winds aloft, blew all my faculties away into infinity like 
dust. 

Suddenly the hurricane's first mighty passion blew itself 
out. 

We all stood on deck, huddled, looking into each other's 
faces. 

" Are you men all there ? " roared the skipper. 

" Aye, aye, sir ! " 

At first we had thought that the cook had gone overboard 
with his galley, but he had just gone into the forecastle to 
turn in when the storm came down on us, so was he 
saved. 

Suddenly I felt as though God had given me a tremendous 
thump on the heart. "Where's Tamafanga ? " I yelled. 

The seas were still roaring and racing along, across the 
world, like triumphant mountains, bound for the south-east. 
Far overhead the stars were flashing and glittering in the 
wet, blue pools of the midnight sky. 

" Tamafanga ! " I yelled again. 

243 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Tamafanga ! " came like a husky echo from the bearded 
throats of the men just by me. 

Then a voice said : " Tamafanga was asleep on the cook's 
bench in the galley. He felt the cold, and lay down to 
sleep with some old sacks over him ! " 

The galley was miles astern, lost on those mountainous 
seas ! 

The huddled sailormen looked pale and haggard. The 
moon shone through a wrack of cloud, just for a moment, as 
they all turned their heads and gazed astern into that vast, 
angry, tomb-like night. Their eyes looked glassy with 
sorrow. It was the beautiful link between the white man 
and the brown man. There it shone, terribly sad on those 
haggard, ghastly faces. 

" God Almighty ! " I gasped, realising the truth. 

All the crew answered my exclamation like an echo, it 
sounded reverential and full of sorrow. 

Tamafanga, the beautiful singer, handsome Tamafanga 
of the South Seas^ — where was he ? 

" Tamafanga ! " I yelled again, as I felt hke some wild 
madman, not knowing what to do or realising to the full 
how hopeless was my call to that wild night of storm-swept 
seas. Then I cried like a child. The next night and the 
next night — I wept again as I lay in my bunk. Ah ! why be 
ashamed that I loved dear, singing Tamafanga ? 

Brother or sister, believe me, I would not have wept half 
so much had a king lain down to rest in that bit of old sacking, 
to awaken far away on those relentless, mountainous seas 
of the night, miles and miles astern. 

The whole crew missed Tamafanga, I never heard so many 
genuine regrets. The cook hardly spoke for two days, only 
puffed his pipe, stared from the extemporised galley at the 
sea and murmured : " Well ! Well ! " 

But why be sad ? It's done now, long years ago. Fate 
got its whack of sorrow out of Tamafanga, so I suppose we 
must smile and be cheered at the thought that Destiny did 
a cowardly act and was happy in doing it. There is little 
more worth recording about that unfortunate passage. 

After Tamafanga ceased singing, and went to the bottom 

244 



THE IRONY OF FATE 

of the Pacific to await the trump of doom, I became depressed, 
though, of course, I had no right to be. Depression over 
the loss of something that has nothing to do with the 
materialistic side of one's own existence is a sign of mental 
disorder. 

But I must admit that the crew of the Rockhampton were 
all tarred with the same brush, and when I played the violin 
in the forecastle it was very obvious that they all missed 
Tamafanga's voice. 

The weather following that hurricane was gloriously fine 
for the rest of the voyage. The days crept out of eternity 
and shone like vast blue mirrors between the tropical nights 
of twinkling myriads of stars. 

I do not think I had a good sound sleep throughout the 
whole passage to Nuka Hiva. It was the saddest, the most 
\m.comfortable voyage I ever experienced in those parts. 
The Rockhampton was one of the old, wooden clipper ships, 
the sailors said that she was built of bug teak — some kind 
of a tropical hard wood that bred bugs. True enough, 
those insects fairly lifted me out of my bunk, turned me over 
and sought the tenderest spots. It may sound blasphemous, 
but I believe that Providence watches over the interests 
of bugs. 

The instincts of those semi-human things was truly 
marvellous. Attacked viciously all night by them, we would 
search by daylight — and never find one. They migrated 
through the deck cracks into the hold during the day. At 
night I would creep into my berth and sight thousands of 
pairs of tiny reddish whiskers (South Sea bugs grow beards) 
twiddling through the deck cracks. We kept a strong 
light on so as to make them think that it was broad daylight. 
But do you think that they were gulled ? Not they ! 
Though storms raged, though men wept, though romantic 
Tamafanga, with his sweet songs, was swept into the raging 
seas of eternity — we arrived off Tai-o-hae and not a bug 
lost! 



345 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Nuka Hiva once more — The Deserted Grog Shanty — Benbow's 
Second Home-coming — He hears the Truth — A Mournful 
Carouse — Knight-errants in the Bell Bird — A Letter from 
Grimes — Another Fruitless Serenade 

ONE can imagine that I did not weep when at last 
we sighted the wild shores of Nuka Hiva and 
entered the beautiful rugged bay of Tai-o-hae. 
Though I had signed on for the trip to San Francisco, 
no sooner had the anchor dropped than I proceeded to make 
myself scarce. At first I had thought of doing a bolt, but 
on reflection I made up my mind to be straightforward with 
the skipper, so I went to him and revealed the fact that I 
wanted to leave ship at once. He turned out a good sort, 
and even gave me a month's money, though according to 
sea agreements he need not have given me a cent. 

To pack up and leave the ship was nothing to me. I was 
leading the life of primeval man, so I was always at home, 
wherever I happened to be, and I was always in the best 
possible place that I could possibly be in at that precise 
moment. My luggage consisted of my violin, a steel-toothed 
hair-comb, two flannel shirts and the blue Chinese-cloth 
midshipman's suit that I lived in. 

I see by my diary notes that I stopped on the s.s. Rock- 
hampton for the first night in port and arrived at the grog 
shanty at Tai-o-hae on the 9th December. 

I will make no attempt to describe my disappointment 
when I arrived at the old place and missed the friendly faces 
of most of the rough men I had known. The tale that Mrs 
Ranjo told me sounded more like some wild romance than 
anything else. 

My first inquiry was about Waylao. Had she turned up ? 
I awaited Mrs Ranjo 's reply with intense interest. She only 
shook her head and stared at me seriously. Indeed she 

246 



THE GREAT TWINSHIP OF SORROW 

looked a bit spiteful, for Waylao had been the cause of taking 
away her most generous and oldest customers from Tai-o-hae, 
under circumstances which I will describe later. 

It was a glorious starlit night when I strolled out of the 
grog shanty with my head fairly humming with all the 
strange things that I had heard from the Ranjos. 

I would have given anything at that moment to have had 
old Grimes beside me, but alas ! it could not be. 

As I strolled along the silent track by the shore, my 
steps instinctively strayed in the direction of the old hulk, 
and ere long I stood on that friendly derelict — alone. My 
heart was heavy with the silence that had greeted me wher- 
ever I sought the sweet music of the voices of comradeship. 
As I stood beneath the broken masts, and stared on the old 
scenes, the changelessness of Nature's face oppressed me. 

The same stars shone over the moimtains, the old figure- 
head still stretched its hands to the dim western constella- 
tions and those far-off worlds seemed as remote as my own 
hopes. I felt the loneliness of heaven enter my heart. 
Inland, just over the rows of forest bread-fruit trees, I could 
see the ascending smoke from the native villages and, near 
the shore, the tiny light of the solitary window of Father 
O'Leary's mission-room. 

Gazing on the dim sky-line, the old figurehead and I 
became dear comrades who communed in the silence of some 
great twinship of sorrow. We were both alone. Hardly 
a sound came from the grog shanty. I saw its lights 
twinkling beneath the palms. No familiar sounds of rollick- 
ing songs disturbed the silence. I felt like one who stood 
on some old shore of far-away memories, the shores of some 
world that I had known ages ago. Below the decks silence 
reigned, dark and deep. The tinkling of the banjo and the 
wild encore yells were missing. Not one song or muffled 
oath greeted my ears. Grimes, Uncle Sam, Benbow and 
all the men I had known so well were far away at sea. 

When Ranjo and his wife told me all, I had gone straight 
up to Father O'Leary. He, too, depressed me as he described 
what had happened since I left Tai-o-hae. 

"Ah! my son," he said, "I have known many troubles 

247 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

sinee I came across the seas to these isles, but few of them 
have been so bad as the sorrow that has come to me of 
late." 

"Did they not find out who was the cause of all this 
unhappiness, Father ? " 

The old priest shook his head for reply, then said : 

" My son, what matters it all, the how and why, since the 
girl has gone ? What use in trying to avert the evil when 
evil has done the worst that it could do ? " 

" That's so," I responded. Then I took the Father aside 
and told him all that I knew about Waylao since she left 
Tai-o-hae. The telling took a long time. As I sat by that 
grey-bearded old priest the tears came to his eyes. 

" My lost sheep, my pretty Waylao, the best of all — and 
so, the easiest to fall, the swiftest to lose ! " Saying this, 
he pressed my hands. 

" My son, have hope. I feel assured that she will come 
again," said the old Catholic as I bade him good-night, and 
went away feeling less hopeful than ever. Ere I left the 
Father I had asked him if Pauline was still on the island. 
To tell the truth, I half-expected to hear that she had flown 
away to sea also. When the priest told me that Pauline 
still roamed that spot by the mountains my heart leapt 
with a strange thrill of joy. She at least is left on earth, 
I thought, as I wandered away into the night. 

Next day I went and saw Madame Lydia, and I shall never 
forget the welcome of the old native woman when I walked 
into her cottage. She almost jumped into my arms as I 
greeted her. I was pleased to find that she was not quite 
alone. It so happened that one of her own relations was 
staying with her till Benbow returned to Tai-o-hae with 
all the shellbacks who had gone away as his crew. 

I will now describe, as well as I am able, all that I heard 
from old Lydia and the Ranjos about Benbow's home-coming 
and why he went to sea with the beachcombers. 

It appeared that, about a week after the Sea Swallow, with 
Waylao and me on board, left, Benbow arrived home. All 
the beachcombers had stopped in the shanty instead of 

248 



NEMESIS 

going down to the shore to greet him as was their 
custom when he put into Tai-o-hae Bay. They antici- 
pated trouble. 

Possibly Benbow himself wondered why everyone looked 
so damnably serious instead of greeting him in the usual 
boisterous fashion when he entered the grog shanty. Not 
one dare tell him the truth about the trouble awaiting him 
at home, but their hearts were pretty full, I am sure, when 
he called for drinks all round. He must have thought that 
the hot weather had affected them as the beachcombers 
lifted their mugs, clinked and drank his health in a subdued 
voice. 

When the burly old skipper had left the shanty, and passed 
away up the little track that led to his home, the shellbacks 
all rushed to the door, watched and listened. Though 
Benbow's bungalow was several hundred yards away, they 
waited the thunderous voice of the skipper, the ejaculations 
that would escape from his lips when trembling old Lydia 
told him all. 

As Benbow entered the old parlour he looked around. 
What was the matter ? Why did his wife look at him like 
a whipped hound ? Where was the welcoming voice of his 
pretty Waylao ? 

"Waylao!" he shouted. Then he stared round him 
wildly. Had old Lydia gone mad, he wondered, as he 
yelled once again. 

" What the hell's the matter ? Where's Waylao ? " 

As the sailorman yelled again and again, in his wild im- 
patience, the old woman only wailed. Suddenly the stricken 
sailor stared aghast. " Is she dead ? " came his husky query. 
For what else but the death of his beautiful Waylao could 
make this terrible silence and that terrible look in the eyes 
of his native wife ? Ah ! reader, you know all, but Benbow, 
the British sailor who had left his daughter in the care of 
his wife, knew nothing. 

" She's gc^e, Benbow ; she go run away into forest, days 
and weeks ago ! " 

" Gone ! " that was all the skipper could say as he stared 
at the woman and stamped his foot. 

249 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Some man deceive our pretty Wayee — she like that ! 
She run ! She run ! O ze great white Gods helps us ! " 

Old Lydia wailed out the foregoing information, and 
looked into the haggard face of the white man, trembling 
the while like a dead leaf. 

For a moment he stared like an idiot. Then he passed 
his hand across his brow. 

" Gone ? Like what ? " came his response in a clash of 
thunderous passion. It sounded like the voice of doom to 
the native woman's ears as the sailor yelled forth his 
inquiry. 

The shellbacks, who were all huddled by the grog shanty 
door, heard that yell. They shivered as they looked into 
one another's awestruck, staring eyes. 

" Gawd blimey ! to fink that oive lived to see this 'ere 
day ! " murmured Grimes as the huddled shellbacks breathed 
heavily, swayed in their sea-boots and listened. 

When Lydia had at length told her husband all that she 
could tell, and dared tell, she clung to his knees. 

For a moment the cottage shook. It was even reported 
that the shellbacks heard muffled screams. Indeed they 
had prepared to rush up the slopes to see if old Lydia was 
being murdered. But they did not go, nor was their presence 
needed, for it was only the cries of Lydia in hysterics at the 
sight of the Britisher's anguish-stricken face. 

Then the reaction came. The white man sat down in his 
arm-chair by his old grandfather clock and cried like a child. 

While Lydia told me those things, that old grandfather 
clock still ticked on like doom. As we sat there in the silence, 
and the woman wept and wailed out all her sorrow to my 
sympathetic ears, the " tick ! tick ! tick ! " seemed to chant 
out in a terribly relentless monotone : 

' - The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ, 
Moves on : nor all thy Piety nor Wit 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.'^ 

"What happened then?" I said, as the woman still 
wept on and I pressed her hand. I hardly knew how to 

250 



SAD HUMANITY 

tell her all that I could tell : how Waylao had stowed away 
on my ship, and then of her last disappearance from the kind 
Matafas in Samoa. When at length I told her all that I 
knew, she stared at me like a bronze statue ; her nose looked 
brittle, her eyes quite glassy. I cannot describe how 
affected I was by that South Sea mother's grief over her 
lost child, and how I raised her hopes, swearing that I thought 
that Waylao was safe and sound, and would soon return, 
while my heart, alas ! belied all that my voice uttered. 

She was a brown-skinned woman, born and reared up in 
a savage land, yet I could see no difference between her 
grief and that of any other mother of the civilised world. 

When the distraught woman had at length somewhat 
recovered, she continued to tell me about Benbow. 

It appeared that as soon as the sailor had relieved his 
feelings he had quietly put on his cap and gone back to the 
grog shanty. As he entered the grog bar, the shellbacks 
faced him with steady eyes and silent lips. He looked into 
their eyes and knew through one glance that he gazed on 
honest men. 

"Boys," he said, "come up to my home. I want you 
to tell me all that you know — then we will broach the rum 
cask!" 

Saying this, without another word he walked away. 
The tense silence of that rough crew of sympathetic men was 
dispelled by a huge sigh. Though the rum cask was to be 
broached as usual, a fact quite outside their expectations, 
they were sincerely sorry. That sigh came from the 
depths of their hearts, that warmed at the thought of the 
rum, which was of the very best brand. 

As soon as the stricken father had departed, they all 
swallowed their drinks and filed out into the dusk of the hot 
evening. 

Following the little track by the colonnade of palms they 
soon arrived outside Benbow's cottage, and entered the little 
doorway in solemn silence, like a funeral procession. 

Each man hitched up the knees of his pants and sat down, 
half nervously, in the old chairs to await events. The silence 
was broken only by the tick of the grandfather clock and 

251 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

the small coughs of expectation as Benbow stooped forward 
and, with tears in his eyes, broached the rum cask. Benbow 
had by this time drunk several pick-me-ups to steady his 
nerves, and he seemed more like himself again. Looking 
up at the crew as he sat in the old arm-chair he said : 

" Boys, you know all that's happened during my absence ; 
now, I want you to tell me all that you know about this 
affair." 

For a moment all the beachcombers were silent. They 
remembered how Waylao had slept in the hulk, and each one 
wondered what Benbow would think when he heard about 
it all. Suddenly Ken-can, the ever-silent, saturnine chum 
of Benbow's, stared at them all and sneered. Uncle Sam 
returned the gaze of those fixed, soulless eyes and muttered 
a fearful oath beneath his breath. Uncle Sam knew the 
significance of that sneer, but after a moment's reflection 
determined to ignore it. 

Under the influence of the same inspiration, each lifted 
his mug of rum and relieved his feelings. Then Uncle Sam 
braced up his pants, coughed as he looked round, and com- 
menced in this wise : 

"Captain, we feels right-down sorry about this 'ere 
business. We ain't going to hold nothing back about all 
that we knows. I guess I'll tell yer right here all that we 
know about your daughter, Waylao." 

He then slowly proceeded, with almost mathematical 
precision, to narrate the whole story as far as he knew it. 

"Ah, me," said old Lydia to me. "He kind Melican 
man. Uncle Sams." 

It appeared that the good-hearted American shellback 
had put in many little touches which were calculated to 
melt Benbow's heart where his old wife Lydia was con- 
cerned. Indeed Uncle Sam illustrated the native woman's 
grief over her daughter's flight. He knew that it was 
well to do this for Lydia's sake, for she had wandered about 
the isle in a demented condition screaming out : " I've 
driven my daughter Wayee away into the forest for ever ! " 
Of course, island scandal had made a lot out of the native 
woman's incoherent cries. 

253 



HUMANITY'S ROMANTIC NOTE 

I've no doubt that it took Uncle Sam a long time to tell 
his story, and much moistening of his throat with rum, but 
when the tale was told, and Uncle Sam had described 
Waylao's grief, Benbow pulled out his big red pocket- 
handkerchief and blew his nose. All the beachcombers saw 
through the ruse, for the British sailor slipped the corners 
to his eyes as though he were ashamed of the tears. It 
appeared that they drank considerably that night, and 
became emotional. I suppose the sight of the old sailor's 
grief was too much for them. There had been a regular 
pandemonium of sorrowful expressions after that speech of 
Uncle Sam's. Some sneezed, some coughed and wiped their 
eyes with their sleeves. To tell one the truth, even the 
jockey chap, who wore checked trousers and made bets 
on the most sacred things, was overcome. He told me 
afterwards that he'd never seen anything so sad since the 
" dead cert " came in last and fell down dead. Then he 
said : " Well, I'll never say that Bret Harte's characters 
were not taken from life again." 

Ere that renowned night of sorrow commingled with rum 
was old, Benbow rose from his chair and called for volunteers 
who would go with him in search of Waylao. 

"I'll search the b Pacific till I find her ! " he roared. 

Without any hesitation the whole assemblage of beach- 
combers had lifted their mugs and, with voices thick with 
emotion as well as rum fumes, had said : " Captain, put me 
down for one ! " 

Thus did Benbow get together his volunteer crew who 
would go and search the seas for the missing Waylao. 

As the old native woman rambled on, telling me these 
things in her emotional, descriptive way, I saw that scene 
before my eyes, and even regretted that I had been absent 
from so romantic a night. I knew those rough men so well 
that I could easily imagine how the thought of going away 
with Benbow after Waylao thrilled their hearts and struck 
some dormant, romantic note of their souls ! 

Before the solemn meeting broke up, songs were sung. 
Perhaps it is best to tell the whole truth — ere daybreak 
had painted the sea-line with grey, only three beachcombers 

253 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

were able to creep back to the hulk without immediate 
assistance. At least four of them slept under the palms, 
some were carried back to the hulk with their feet dragging 
behind them, for the rum cask in Benbow's cottage was 
empty. 

"Ah mees," wailed old Lydia, as she continued. "The 
great white mans were sorry for mees and so they did drink 
and drink." 

When I asked her about Bill Grimes her face became 
very sympathetic. "Ah, good Grimes, it was he who put 
Benbows to beds. Benbow very ill, no take boots off — 
feet pained ! " 

Then the old woman looked at me and said : " Ah, 
Glimes bad mans, but old Lydia forgives him for stealing." 

"What did he steal?" said I, at hearing this strange 
accusation about my honest Grimes. 

"He steal my brass locket, with my pretty Wayee's 
poto [photo] in it." 

As the woman told me of this slight indiscretion of my 
honest pal I felt sorry for Grimes. I easily imagined 
the temptation, considering his infatuation for the girl. I 
could almost see him slipping the image of the girl off the 
bedroom toilet-table as he put Benbow to bed, and could 
hear him unconsciously express the one great truth of 
modern civilisation as he murmured: "What the eye 
don't see the 'eart don't grieve abart ! " 

Suddenly Lydia ceased her tears and darted across the 
room to the pocket of some old skirt. Then she returned 
to me and handed me a little note. It was a letter from 
Grimes, left by him in the care of Lydia for me, should I 
return ere he came back to Tai-o-hae. This is how it ran. 
I copy it from the dirty bit of paper that lies before me on 
my desk as I write : 

"Dear Old Pal. — Ave goned away on the Bell bird, 
hoff to find Wayler, Benbow's dorter, you knows. Opes 
to be back soone. Missed you afully like, rote some fine 
poultry [poetry]. Aint alf ad a spree since you went hoff 
on the Sea Swaller. If you gets back to Ty-o-hae afore I 

254 



THE MISSIONARY'S ROMANTIC NOTE 

comes back, wait for me. If I finds Waylayer ]. moight 
marry 'er. You can come and stay wif us. Good bye 
pal, dont forgit Grimes, we'll meet soone 

"Bill Grimes." 

When I had read this note I felt depressed, and a bit wild, 
too, that I had not been back in time to tell them all that 
I knew about Waylao. I gathered from Lydia that the 
Bell Bird had gone to Fiji. 

It appeared that, before the schooner sailed, Benbow 
had had a hint that Waylao had been in Suva. I never 
found out how he got this information, probably he had 
heard it from some sailor who called in at Tai-o-hae when 
the Sea Swallow came into port again. 

After I bade the native woman good-night I went straight 
away towards the grog shanty to see the Ranjos again. In 
their little bar parlour I heard a full account of the sailing 
of the Bell Bird. It appeared that the whole township had 
been agog with the excitement of the start. The whole 
population had turned out to see the beachcombers off. 
Bill Grimes, Uncle Sam and nearly all who had attended 
the council at Benbow's cottage were on board as the crew. 
Ranjo said : " There never was such a hell of a pandemonium 
of farewell cheers down on the beach before as when Benbow 
put to sea with my Tai-o-hae customers on his ship — and 
fourteen casks of the best rum in the cuddy ! " 

Some of the island folk sneered and said Benbow had gone 
daft. 

" What a fuss to make about a sinful girl ! " said some. 

Others shook their heads about the ways of the world and 
of Benbow's wisdom in sailing away on such a mad search 
with such a desperately bad crew. The Tai-o-hae Missionary 
Times devoted a special article to the sailing of the 
Bell Bird. Its tone was sarcastic : it said something about 
Helen of Troy in the Southern Seas and of the benefit she 
had conferred on the island by ridding Tai-o-hae of so many 
wastrels. 

Many ventured their opinions as to the ultimate result 
of the voyage. Some said that they would safely return 

255 



V 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

with Waylao, others shook their heads as though they were I 
dubious about it. But not one, I am sure, prophesied or ' 
dreamed of the far-off port that Benbow and his crew had 
set sail for. 

But to return to my own immediate experiences. As 
soon as I saw a chance of speaking to Mrs Ranjo alone I 
took her aside and asked for news of John L . 

"Does L still come to the shanty and imbibe ? " I 

asked. 

I asked this question because I had walked under the palms 
to and fro to that grog bar quite twenty times, hoping that 
I might meet Pauline. I knew that so long as her father 
had a chance of getting drunk the daughter would be 
seeking his whereabouts. 

When Mrs Ranjo informed me that he was laid up, crippled 
with gout, I felt truly sorry. I must confess that I was not 
so sorry about his gout and suffering as at the thought that 
he could not get tight at the shanty and so give me a chance 
of meeting his daughter. 

What with the absence of Grimes, the death of Tama- 
fanga, and various other aids to depression, I felt that some- 
thing must be done to dispel my cloudy thoughts and make 
a little artificial sunshine. With this idea, I went straight 

off that same night to L 's little homestead by the 

mountains. It may be remembered I had been up to that 
silent hamlet in the hills long before, serenading the girl 
who haunted my mind. 

I recall the very atmosphere of that night as I left the 
shanty full of hopes that I should see Pauline. Even as I 
write, I can almost fancy that I smell the rich, warm scents 
of the wild cloves and faded orange blossoms that hung 
on the boughs as I strolled by that silent bungalow. The 
night was thick with stars, staring as though pale with 
fright at the rising moon on the eastern horizon. 

I crept through the thickets of bamboos and went across 
the small pathway that ran across the patch of garden. 
All was silent except for the chirruping monotone of the 
locusts that haunted the tare and pine-apples that grew in 
wild profusion around. 

256 



WHERE PAULINE SLEEPS 

Peering through the branches, I saw a light ghmmering 
through the crack of the doorway. I knew that it came from 

the small compartment wherein lay John L and his 

weird companion. As I drew nearer, I saw the shadow 
figure of that eternal watcher. That shadow bobbed about 
the wall as the patient groaned and asked, presumably, for 
just a little drop of spirit to moisten his fevered lips. 

I became brave, and crept closer, to within three feet of 
the little room wherein Pauline slept. I suppose that it was 
the worry I had had and the sound of the breath of heaven 
that roamed through the trees that made me madly romantic. 
I whistled a soft melody that Pauline had once admired. 
I listened and watched, but only the stars winked over the 
giant trees. 

Ah ! how my heart beat as I looked up at that moonlit 
window-pane. I fancied I saw the scarlet blossoms of the 
tangled vines quiver in the brilliant night gleam. It seemed 
to me that the small window by the coco-palms was some 
ghostly, glassy eye staring down at me and watching over 
that sleeping girl. In the vivid inward light of a romantic 
boy's imaginings, I fancied I saw Pauline lying like a warm, 
white-limbed angel between the sheets, her eyes closed in 
sleep as she dreamed of what-— me ? Alas ! why should 
she dream of me ? 



257 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Heart-to-heart Talks with Pauline — My Native Friends — The Un- 
appreciated Genius — His Views on Art — Father O'Leary's Call 
— Waylao's Return 

FATHER O'LEARY and I became the best of pals. 
Though we disagreed on some matters we never 
argued. 

" My son, smoking is a silly habit," he said. 

"I suppose you're right," I responded, taking my pipe 
from my lips. 

He at once held my hand, saying : " Smoke on, I know 
of men who have done worse." 

By this alone one may gather that he was harmless 
enough and a truly religious man. 

He often spoke to me of his boyhood as we sat beneath 
the orange grove by his little mission-room bungalow. I 
learnt then that his mother was Irish and his father French. 

He lent me a little book on the philosophy of the senses 
and I discovered a beautiful lock of twisted hair in it. When 
I mentioned my discovery, the priest coloured slightly and 
seemed embarrassed. He had evidently forgotten it was 
in the book. When he was down with fever a few days 
after, I distinctly heard him mention a woman's name in his 
delirium — a pretty French name — and from all that I heard 
his lips mutter, it was evident that somewhere back in the 
past the Father had had a love affair. As I lay on my 
trestle bed by his side, I wondered if that woman's name had 
anything to do with his exile out there in the South Seas, and 
conjured up quite a host of romantic imaginings over the 
discovery of that lock of brown hair. Whose was it ? 
What evil fate had intervened, that the only tokens of that 
romance should be the lock of hair and the feverish ravings 
on the lips of an old French missionary priest in the Mar- 
quesan cannibal isles ? While the Father slept I gazed at 
him and thought what a handsome youth he must have 

258 



A MELODY OF ROMANCE 

been. Even in old age some aftermath of youth's charm 
still lingered on his face. He had a fine brow and a kind 
mouth, so different to millions of mouths I've seen. 

He was never so happy as when we sat out beneath the 
bread-fruits by moonlight and I played tender solos on the 
violin. Fired by the romance I had weaved around my 
discovery of that ringlet, I composed the following solo. 
It was a favourite of the priest's ; he asked me to play it 
over and over again. Nor did he dream why I had been 
inspired to compose that strain. 



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260 



PAULINE SINGS TO ME 

He often spoke of Waylao in sorrow, and of the sins 
and the passions of the dusky Southern race. Through his 
hospitality I met Pauline more than once. She loved to 
hear me play the violin. The world took on a different 
atmosphere as she sang old English songs her father had 
taught her. The beauty of those songs was intense, and I 
became home-sick as I listened to her voice, accompanied 
by the monotone of the breaking seas below and the wild 
oaths of sunburnt seafaring men in the grog shanty hard by. 
None but exiles know how an English song touches the 
heart and awakens dreams in a man. I had led a wild life 
and done many strange things, and had been influenced by 
many a chimera, but that white girl singing a song of England 
seemed something deeper than I understood, and took me 
back home across the seas. I spoke to Pauline in a sacred 
way of my mother. I said : " Pauline, I never knew how 
beautiful my dear mother was till I met you." Then I 
spoke of my father. I told her how even when I was a 
little, toddling boy he had a long white beard. I think 
that Pauline learnt to love that dear parent of mine. 
She spoke so gently as I described to her the various 
constellations of stars that shone in our English skies. 
In the spontaneous utterance of youth I made her see 
my old father's gnarled walking-stick as it trembled, 
wavered a moment, then pointed out to me the Great 
Bear, the Pleiades, Lyra, Alpha Centauri and remote 
nebulae, constellations shining in the heavens as I walked 
by his side. I explained to her how I had looked up at that 
grand old father of mine as his sombre voice told me those 
magical names, and how I thought that he was the first to 
name the stars. 

Nor did I exaggerate in saying this to her. His grey 
beard had a look of infinity about it as I walked by his side 
in those Kentish woods when I was a boy. Ah ! beautiful 
when. 

I've often felt like jiunping over my shoulders and racing 
back to my childhood. As I dreamed by those coral seas 
I came to love the memory of that child more than life 
itself. I was young then, so to speak. It was only a very 

261 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

few years since I had laid that boy in the grave, dis- 
illusioned, dead, with a bruised, cut lip and a black eye. I 
buried him in the solitudes of an unknown country, buried 
him deep, too. Under his head I pillowed all his childhood 
dreams. What dreams they'd been ! Ah me ! Even now, 
after so many years, I go back to that grave in the dead of 
night, lift the stone slab and gaze on the dead face. He's 
as white as marble. I don't think he'll dissolve into dust 
till I'm dead. He often creeps out of the forests and shadows 
into my room by night, sits at my feet and sings to me. 
We were twins once ; now I stand ashamed in his divine 
presence. 

I could write a big book about that boy and I, what we 
thought to do together when we grew big, when we had 
crossed the ocean — such wondrous deeds of chivalry to fair 
women and comradeship to brave men. He was plucky, 
that little pal of mine ; would run by my side on the ships' 
decks and cheer me in the wild, stormy nights up aloft. 
It was he who led me through the vast, tropical forests, 
telling me to seek Waylao. The world's too rotten and 
cynical to hear all that he wished to do or all the songs he 
sang. 

That little pal still runs by my side. No wonder I love 
boys. I often give a hungry-looking kid a penny and smile 
grimly to myself as he looks at the coin, stares at the little 
ghostly pal at my side and runs away in fright. 

Whilst staying with the kind priest I got pally with his 
dusky converts. Often I went into the forest villages about 
half-a-mile from his mission-room. Never have I played to 
a more appreciative audience than to those shaggy native 
mothers who crept from their huts to hear me. Some, for 
all their sins, had handsome faces and eyes. Their little 
children would romp about me and mimic the swaying of 
my violin bow and the melodies that I played. One old 
ex-cannibal chief became a most estimable companion of 
mine, and though he incidentally confessed that he liked 
human flesh on toast, I found him a reliable pal, trust- 
worthy and deeply religious. He was a close observer of 
the beauties of nature, and I cannot recall any civilised 

262 



MY ADVANCE-GUARD 

white man whose conversation took my thoughts to a higher 
plane. 

This particular old native, Maro Le Mu, had several bonny- 
sons and daughters. He invited me to his home, which was 
situated in a beautiful spot not far from the lagoons near 
the shore port of entry near Tai-o-hae. His wife was a 
stalwart, deep-bosomed Tahitian, and a most hospitable 
woman. I stayed with them for a week and had fine times. 
The children of Maro and his relatives (he had four discarded 
wives of old standing) were delighted with me, and as I 
roamed the slopes and forests, they followed me like a flock 
of gambolling puppies. They looked upon me as some 
mighty white god or witch-man. When I played the violin 
they would creep up to me and try and peep into the instru- 
ment to find where the music came from. I would run my 
fingers up the E string, and as the bow wailed forth the high 
harmonics they would scream with fright and spring away 
from me, regarding me with awe. Had it not been for 
Chief Maro and those kiddies, I think I should have got a 
ship and cleared before I did. 

One of the sons' children was a little girl about six years 
of age, a very pretty child, a mixture of Marquesan and 
Tahitian blood. She was beautifully tattooed on the 
shoulder curves and on the wrists. I think that O Maro 
Le Mu was high born and that the child was marked with 
the special insignia of the armorial bearings of the Maro Le 
Mu family's blood royal. However, I practically hired little 
Winga, for so I pronounced her gimcrack Marquesan name. 
She would run behind me through the forest like a little 
dusky ghost, and when I entered a village she marched 
ahead as my advance-guard, so proud was she of being my 
servant. It was a sight worth seeing as she lifted her chin, 
while the forest flowers fastened in her folds of coral-dyed 
hair tossed as she marched disdainfully across some rara 
(village green), refusing to consort with or look at the flocks 
of native kiddies who rushed up to us as we passed along. 
They stared with awestruck eyes at that little comrade of 
mine, as we saluted the tribal king and his retinue of dusky 
wives and then passed away into the forest. She was an 

263 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

affectionate mite, and reminded me of the Fijian kiddie of 
the same age whom a pal and I had taken with us when we 
went troubadouring for hundreds of miles in the various 
isles of Polynesia, 

It was at this time that I met a strange old man, who 
turned out to be an artist. He lived all alone on an islet 
just off the coast, not far from Chief Maro Le Mu's home, and 
he invited me to go and see him. I accepted the invitation 
with alacrity, and hired a native canoe to take me across the 
three or four hundred yards of deep sea that divided his 
islet from the wooded mainland. Winga, her grandfather, 
and about twenty native youths and girls swam beside my 
outrigger canoe as I was paddled across to the isle. I felt 
like some dusky potentate as I saw those handsome savage 
children and old-time chiefs of royal blood swimming behind 
me, their dark heads drifting the still water into wavelets, 
their bright eyes gleaming with delight. They were all 
shouting forth in the musical Marquesan tongue their bright 
salutations : " Aloah ! Awaie ! Tangi me o le solea ! " 

So well do I know those happy, innocent people, who are 
true heathens and supposed to be savage animals, that I 
must confess that I have long ago discarded all conventional 
ideas. Indeed, so far as the normal outlook on conventional 
life is concerned, my mind has become completely reversed. 
I sometimes think that God's most sacred agent — he who 
gains the most converts for immortality — is the devil 
himself. It is probable that some mighty mistake was 
made somewhere, and I would not be surprised to find, 
when I die, that the angels of heaven yearn to inherit 
mortality. 

When I arrived at that old artist's bungalow, I was sur- 
prised to find so snug a dwelling-place in that heathen-land. 
It was like an ideal bit of paradise, and consisted of two 
rooms, one a sleeping compartment, the other a living-room. 
As that solemn old man welcomed me into his little parlour, 
I stared in wonder. On the table lay a quantity of books 
and an old-fashioned telescope, native goblets made from 
coco-nut shells, and a large calabash. In the corner was 
his easel and palette, where he still followed the course of 

264 



MAN'S CONCEPTION OF GOD 

his profession. The walls of that cabin were ornamented 
with roughly framed paintings. These paintings repre- 
sented a variety of subjects — ships fading away into the 
sunsets of mystical seas ; faery outlines of beautiful women 
afloat on clouds in wondrous skies, allegorical faces peeping 
through mists, with stars shining through their hair ; 
symbolical pictures portraying human aspirations with a 
wonderfully sure touch. One painting was so extensive 
that it took up one whole side of the cabin wall. It repre- 
sented God : a vast white beard seemed to float on the sky- 
line of a dark infinity, the Face was a dim, wonderful outline, 
only the deep eyes of Creation were visible in the mystical 
hollows, mysteriously sprinkled with stars shining from their 
infinite depths, as the ages hung heavily on the vast, craggy 
brows. " You are a true artist," said I, as I looked at that 
masterpiece. 

The old man saw that I was greatly impressed. His 
wrinkled face lit up with pride as he observed my silent 
admiration. 

After taking refreshments we sat together in the shade 
of that snug cabin of art, and the conversation drifted to 
the homeland. I soon discovered that his memories of the 
civilised cities were not pleasant dreams. I ventured the 
opinion that if our countrymen afar could see his paintings 
his efforts would be greatly appreciated and his fortune 
secured. A half-humorous curve flicked across his lips 
in a sarcastic smile. Then he coughed, and with a look of 
deep commiseration in his clear grey eyes he glanced 
steadily at me and said : 

"Ah, my boy, I too once thought such things, ere I was 
drastically disillusioned. You seem not to understand that 
our countrymen know nothing of art, that they can rob 
artists with impunity and drive them, crushed, broken up 
and penniless, abroad or into the grave. They are even 
applauded for doing these things." 

" Dear me," quoth I, as the old fellow's white beard shook 
through the emotion that he felt. Then I added: "Why 
are they applauded ? " 

"Why, say you?" responded he. "Simply because the 

265 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

laws of our country are made by the elected of forty million 
fools, fools that make laws that allow the enemies of art to 
rob the children of art. We artists toil for many years 
endeavouring to express the truth in art. With what 
result ? Lo ! he whom Nature has mentally equipped so 
that he might paint our boots makes some monstrous 
imitation in vulgar perspective and colour of our sublimest 
conceptions. These quacks rush forth and sell their daubs 
as works of art." 

" Why, that which you say applies to all the arts : men 
rob " 

Ere I could proceed further the old man gave such a 
stern look at this interruption of his pet theme that I at 
once stifled my assertive voice and, shrinking up ashamed 
into my shell, once more listened as he continued : 

"What is the result of this robbery of our inherited 
dreams ? Why, we come forward, and though we offer true 
art, no one wants it, nor will they pay according to its 
merits or in proportion to the labour that we have expended. 
The walls of the homesteads in our country are covered 
with these spurious works that have been painted by the 
hands that should not have aspired higher than to paint 
the boots of Art." 

At saying this, and a good deal more, the sad old artist 
looked up over the giant bread-fruit trees, as a flock of 
parrots swept across the sky, stroked his massive beard, and 
went on in this wise : 

" Ah ! young friend, I could no longer stand being robbed 
by liars and hypocrites and fools, so I bade farewell to my 
brother artists. Yes, I gazed for the last time into their 
sunken eyes and on their hollow cheeks and sailed away for 
the isles of these Southern Seas. Indeed the clamouring 
of my creditors, the fingers of Scorn pointing at my shabby 
garments, left nothing else for me to do. Here in these 
kindly isles I hope to prolong my days by getting regular 
nourishment." 

So saying, the strange old fellow took from his capacious 
pocket half a ripe coco-nut, bit off a large piece of the white 
substance and chewed for a moment in silence. Swallowing 

266 



A MISSING AUTHOR AND MUSICIAN 

the nutritious morsel, he proceeded, to my delight — for the 
satire of his delivery was truly exquisite — 

" I know of two other artists who, like myself, have 
emigrated to these parts." 

" Do you ? " quoth I eagerly, intensely interested in so 
strange, so wise an old man. 

" Yes ; one is an author and the other a musician. They 
live happily together on a lonely islet of the Paumotus 
Group. A late cannibal chief, who is a native of these isles, 
is their beloved attendant ; and with him they commune 
in reverent dreams when the nights are long. There, on 
their solitary islet, they discuss their experiences among 
the slaves in civilised lands and the haunting memories of 
their childhood's days. Dressed in the native costume of 
these parts, a loin-cloth only, they have long since resigned 
themselves to the inevitable. They now see the pompous 
boast of civilisation and its brazen virtue as a monstrous, 
hjrpocritical curse, a malignant fungus growth on the soul 
of truth, of beauty and true happiness." 

" No ! " quoth I in my intense interest, quite forgetting 
the stern gleam of those grey eyes of art over my first inter- 
ruption. I almost trembled at my foolish assertion. For a 
moment he ceased speaking, pulled his beard half viciously, 
and gazed at me like some towering schoolmaster as I humbly 
stood there. Like all men who have lived long in exile, 
one syllable of another's voice was a tremendous interval 
of rude interruption. Once more he continued: "These 
two men whom I spoke of ere you interrupted still follow 
their professions. One plays on the violin to the winds, 
and the other writes down his aspirations on the sea sands 
and thoughtfully watches the tides wash the words away. 
They chop wood, grow pine-apples, bananas, sago, taro, 
tobacco, and lead an ideal existence." 

Delighted with my obvious interest, he meandered on : 

" I know of another exile who lives near Guadalcanar, in 
the Solomon Isles. Clothed in rags that covered an emaci- 
ated body, he escaped from his own country by stowing 
away on a sailing-ship. He was a poet. 

"After years of adventurous wandering he has settled 

267 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

in a wild, lonely spot near a tribal village where not so long 
since the folk were ferocious cannibals and addicted to the 
horrors of sacrificial heathen ceremonies. I saw this poet 
myself, for I happened to go that way two years agone. 

"He had learnt the native tongue, and so makes a good 
living by engraving his rhymes and improvisations on the 
brains of the islanders. He dresses as the natives dress, in 
the scantiest of attire, and lives and eats as they do. The 
last I saw of him was when he dwelt in a comfortable parvanue 
near the mountain villages. He has reached the zenith of 
his ambitions : he wears long hair, and, standing on his lecture- 
stump in the native villages, he retells, in emotional, eloquent 
verse, their old legends and glorious tales of far-off barbarian 
battles, and thanks God that at last he has found a tribe 
of men who understand his special gift, and who wildly 
applaud his efforts." 

" Well now ! " was all that I could utter as he ceased. 

He gave a little cough as he finished his discourse, a 
cough that almost musically expressed the contemptuous 
exasperation that embittered his mind. 

I would not assert that the foregoing is an exact verbal 
account of all that the old artist said to me, but I vouch that 
it is a faithful reproduction of his central ideas and all that 
my memory retains and which seems worth the recording. 
And I give it here as an illustration of the strange characters 
that are to be found living an isolated life in the wide spaces, 
the far-scattered isles of the North and South Pacific. 

I stayed with that strange man for several hours. He was 
delighted when I played my violin to him. To my astonish- 
ment he commenced to sing some old song — Scenes that are 
Brightest, if my memory does not fail me. He had a fine 
voice, and looked annoyed when the dusky kiddies of my 
retinue shrieked with laughter as he sang. 

When I left him he was packing up his few essential 
requirements for a trip to Papeete, where he would often 
go when the trader streamer called into the harbour from 
Hivaoa. My last remembrance of him is when he stood at 
his hut door by the banyans, waving his hand to me as I went 
down the little shore by the pauroe-trees and met my dusky 

268 



PAULINE WEEPS IN MY ARMS 

comrades. The memory of it all stands out like some experi- 
ence that I had in another world beyond the stars, some 
little islet by an immortal mainland, as I paddled my own 
outrigger canoe and went back to the bread-fruit groves of 
the opposite shores with a group of singing, dusky cherubims 
swimming behind me. 

The stars were crowding the sky in their millions when 
the unexpected occurred. I was sitting near the mission- 
room at the time. It so happened that there was a great 
commotion in the grog shanty, for a schooner had just 
arrived in the port of Tai-o-hae. Also, I was feeling a bit 

out of sorts. John L had just been buried in the 

cemetery by Calaboose Hill. He had succumbed to gout 
aiid the best rum — at least that was what they said in the 
shanty. 

I had been comforting Pauline — she was weeping, and I 
thought things were as bad as they could be. 

Though I'd travelled far, lived with the world's worst men, 
sought fortunes on gold-fields, been down with fever, lived 
on bananas and orange peel, buried old pals, I never got such 
a sorrowful surprise as came to me on this particular night. 

Suddenly Father O'Leary poked his face out of the 
cloistered shadows and said : " My son, my son, come ! " 

I at once responded. When I arrived in the little room 
wherein he dwelt, I found he had a companion with him. 
At first I thought it was some native girl who had come to 
confess. 

The light from his hanging oil-lamp was burning very 
dimly. 

" My son, look ! " he cried. I noticed that his voice 
trembled. 

I could hardly believe my eyes as I looked again and saw 
that outcast by his side. Notwithstanding the wasted form 
and the terrible look on the face, I recognised Waylao. 

The Father closed the door as I entered. 

We never slept a wink that night. The old priest ran his 
fingers through his beads and went on his knees as Waylao 
wept and told us all that had happened to her since I had 

269 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

lost sight of her in Samoa, and her experiences seemed in- 
credible. I do not mind confessing that I was a bit over- 
come as I heard that tale of sorrow. It was something that 
outrivalled everything I'd read — Louis Beck, Robert Louis 
Stevenson and all the romances of the South Seas. The 
surprise of the Father was even greater than my own, for 
I knew much about the girl's doings till the time she had 
arrived at the Matafas' in Apia. 

As I would like to tell the facts of the case, I will revert 
to the period when Waylao disappeared from the Matafas'. 

I can only hope to give the faintest outline of all that 
really happened, and this I will attempt in the following 
narrative. 



270 



CHAPTER XXV 

Waylao leaves the Matafas in Apia — She drifts a Castaway at 
Sea — ^Her Sufferings — The Canoe beaches on an Uninhabited 
Isle — ^The Natural Guest of her Sorrow arrives — Death — 
Strange Visits to the Isle — The Strangers teU Waylao of their 
Sufferings — Sympathy — Aiola the Hawaiian and O Le Haiwa-oe, 
her Lover — Mrs Matafa's Shawl as a Distress Signal — ^Waylao's 
Ruse — Castaways in Sorrow 

WHEN Waylao decided to leave the Matafas in 
Samoa she had been in Apia exactly one 
month. 

The kind old Matafas had wished her good-night, as gently 
as though she were their own daughter, and then retired to 
their sleeping compartment. Although the half-caste girl 
had become quite attached to those old Samoans since 
first they received her with open arms, the longing for her 
native isle and the memory of those whom she had loved 
when a child overcame all the trouble she felt at leaving 
her benefactors. She resolved to steal one of the beach 
canoes on the shore by the Matafas' homestead and put 
out to sea on her own account, trusting to luck. It was 
a mad idea, full of peril, and yet as she told her tale bit by 
bit quietly, and relentlessly, it seemed as though all that 
she had set out to accomplish had come to her in the fullest 
measure. 

Once out on those wide waters, adrift in that tiny craft, 
she knew she would be at the mercy of the elements. 
The chances of being sighted by a passing ship and 
taken to her native land were very remote, as one may 
imagine. 

But what cared Waylao ? She troubled not whither the 
winds blew her, only longed to drift away on those illimitable 
waters. 

Without hesitation she jumped into the first canoe that 
she sighted, lifted the paddle and pushed the tiny craft into 

271 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

deep water. The tide was ebbing southward as she drifted 
away to sea. The dim, forest-clad shore by Mulinuu faded 
from her sight like a dream of yesterday. She seemed to be 
leaving reality for the realms of the great unreal as she 
glided on the bosom of that mighty tide. 

Away ! Away ! Anywhere away, she cared not whither. 

The winds of heaven came down ; they seemed to come 
to caress, to respond to the vague wishes of the stricken girl. 
Their caressing, shifting fingers touched her hair and fevered 
brow. Ineffable peace breathed languor into her brain, and 
she slept. No mortal pen can tell the dreams of that cast- 
away girl as the sentinel night stared with a million million 
eyes on to those waters of the Pacific. 

A faint flush brightened the east — daybreak was coming. 
The stars took hasty flight down the encircling sky-lines as 
Waylao awoke. 

Dawn, like a mighty river's multitudinous flood of infinite 
colour, swept into that vast, hollow vault as the first pang 
of the new day's birth commenced. Crimson, splashed with 
lines of saffron and green, climbed, glimmered, flickered and 
flamed as they touched and fired the lines of mist on the 
eastern horizon, while far to the south-west the last flock 
of stars took frightened flight. 

The birth of that mighty splendour broadened till the 
gold-flashing eye of day looked over the blue horizon. 
Nothing but the vast azure circle of infinite water was in 
sight, only the frail castaway, a stricken girl adrift, fleeing 
from wrath, the hatred of outraged virtue. 

The very heavens seemed to assume a serious mood. The 
eye of day stared with magnificent heat from its unlidded 
socket of all the sky. Old Mrs Matafa's hands had toiled 
divinely for the coming events of Time unborn, for out of 
the measures of her weaving fingers happened that which 
her soul had no hint of in her wildest dreams, as she knitted 
and knitted, for lo ! the perishing castaway ceased appealing 
to the dumb sky and drew the laced folds of that old shawl 
over her sun-scorched head. But for the protection of that 
old shawl the girl would certainly have perished under the 
blaze of that brassy sky. 

272 



ENDLESS SEAS OF SORROW 

Thirst leapt into her frame with demon craving. The 
sun dropped Kke a ball of blood into the ocean and glimmered 
fiercely in its fading light. Like a goblet of boiling blood 
lifted on the sky-line, it appeared, then suddenly disappeared. 

Notwithstanding her sufferings, the girl still felt the 
cherished desire of humanity to cling to life — though suffer- 
ing the pangs of death. In that tiny drifting craft on a 
world of torpid water, afloat beneath illimitable space, she 
knelt in prayer to the great dumb sky. The crowded stars 
at first seemed to mock her. Then, like far-off bright thoughts 
of longing, they came to her, like flocks of her own unattain- 
able desires, and peeped up at her imaged in the vast, 
silent waters. 

A puff of wind ruffled that mirror and swept the deep 
waters into reefs of illusive radiance. Then came a wind like 
an infinite breath of pity, and the dying, parched relic of 
humanity sucked in that cold sigh of night — as one would 
drink water. Still she floated on. Slowly a silver glimmer 
of ineffable wildness flushed the south-west horizon ; its 
broadening tide of radiance outrivalled the earnest splendour 
of the stars. Higher and higher it climbed, till the full, 
haggard moon peered like sorrow on that lost child, and 
stared, with sad surprise, on the edge of the ocean. It 
lit that hollow vault of night with a ghostly gleam, a gleam 
that revealed no movement but the tossing arms of the 
delirious castaway. 

Who can paint that scene ? Who can describe one iota 
of the indescribable misery and anguish ere the senses were 
numbed and the head drooped, faint from its prayer to a 
heaven that listened not, in all the vastness of that terrible 
silence ? 

Another day swept in like a mighty silence of breathing 
fire. It came almost without warning across those silent, 
tropic seas. It was as though from the tomb-like vault 
some mighty starry slab of night had been suddenly uplifted, 
revealing a vast sepulchre and deep, deep below one little 
corpse huddled in its shroud, a corpse that still drifted 
across the sUent, blazing seas — as Death, the grey-nosed 
shark, followed silently. 

s 273 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

But Waylao was not dead. It was not the hot furnace 
winds of heaven that fluttered old Mrs Matafa's shawl^ — 
(I have that shawl) — it was the convulsed movement of 
death's despair in one who still lived. 

In the delirium of that unquenchable blaze of sunlight 
Benbow's misguided daughter lifted her head. It was an 
eternity of seconds ere she could muster strength enough 
to hang her face over the rim of her drifting world, then she 
drank, drank, drank ! 

Only the infinite powers know why she did not die as that 
liquid brine stiffened her parched frame with frantic fits of 
madness. 

On, on she drifted. Yet another day swept the skies, 
yet again Time lifted that tremendous lid from the vault 
of reality. Just as Fate loves to shatter the dreams, the 
aspirations, the hopes of men, it seemed to delay the ever- 
lasting touch of sleep, the sleep that hovers like an angel 
with beating wings, waiting to close all eyes. 

For lo ! that same night the heavens poured down 
their sparkling drops. The showers of cool liquid drenched 
her face as she screamed in the esctasy of its cruel 
blessing. 

With the refreshing fluid on her parched lips, and the cool 
breezes of heaven, her senses awakened ; but only dimly 
was her mental vision restored. Phantoms danced across 
that world of water. Shadows of the wrack of clouds, 
racing beneath the moon, fled away into the darkness of the 
far-off, silent horizons, and it may have been those shadowy 
contortions of the sky that peopled the ocean solitude with 
visions for the girl whose eyes were glazed with insanity. 
The face of her Islamic betrayer hung enframed beneath 
the stars. She lifted her hands and beat the air, and cursed 
that visionary face of evil. 

Then her mother came to her, and who knows what visions 
of those whom she had loved, those who had watched 
over the innocence of her childhood ? Once more her senses 
were numbed and she fell huddled to the bottom of the 
canoe. 

On the third or fourth day Waylao lifted her death- 

274 



HOPE! 

stricken face and wondered if she still lived. She stared 
around. Had she died, and was she still travelling onward 
across some purgatorial ocean of death ? As she stared, 
she saw a tiny blot ; it glimmered on the western horizon. 
At first she thought it was a ship ; then in her delirium 
she thought it was the shores of Nuka Hiva in sight. 

At such a possibility the love of life that is so strong 
in youth awoke again, and her being thrilled with tremendous 
hope. She might yet live to gaze into the eyes of those 
she loved. 

As the setting sun broadened in the west, the dark spot 
glittered and took definite shape. One by one tiny hills 
arose, then plumed palms stuck out in bright relief, dis- 
tinctly visible against the background of the yet more 
distant sunset. 

The strong, hot north wind still blew and laughed along 
the rippling sea, yes, as though it knew that its unseen 
hands were fast drifting the poor derelict to deliverance from 
the homeless ocean. 

At the sight of the little isle with its palms and all the 
materialised beauty of Nature's handiwork blossoming forth 
flowers and ferns, the stricken girl fell on her knees and 
thanked God, God who in His own inscrutable way had 
answered her prayers. 

Ere sunset faded down into ocean depth behind the solitude 
of that small, uninhabited isle, Waylao could hear the mur- 
muring of the deep waters on the reefs, and saw the singing 
waves running up the shore, tossing their hands with delight. 

In the reaction from deepest despair to the renewed hope 
she struggled to a sitting posture and laughed in the madness 
of delirium. Then she slept. 

The stars were crowding the heavens when the canoe 
suddenly beached itself. The impact of the frail craft on 
the coral reefs tore the bottom, and so the cooling waters 
crept in and swathed the fevered limbs of the unconscious 
girl. 

Waylao's life was not yet closed, though Providence would 
have been more merciful to have taken her soul away beyond 
the deepest sleep. 

275 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

As the cool waters swished about her body, her eyehds 
quivered ; she moved, then sat up and looked around. 

Who knows what terrible thoughts haunted her delirious 
brain as she tried to fathom the loneliness, the deep silence 
of the small world whereon she had drifted ? The pangs 
of thirst stupefied her faculties. The moaning of the winds 
in the belt of palms just up the shore inspired her heart with 
terror, and seemed to mock her misery. 

Too weak to stand, she crawled up the little patch of 
soft sand to the lagoon that glinmiered in the hollows by the 
shore. She almost screamed with delight as the life-giving 
crystal fluid crept between her cracked lips, moistening her 
parched throat. It was fresh water. Dimly realising that 
she was safe from the desolation of the trackless ocean, she 
crept into the shadow of the bamboo thickets and, quite 
exhausted, fell asleep. 

There she lay, alone beneath the infinite skies. The great 
world, with its cities and histories, did not exist so far as 
she was concerned. 

Awakening with the gilding of the eastern horizon, she 
gazed around and at once realised her awful position. Terror 
seized her. She lifted her face and screamed, then listened. 
No answer came ; only the weird screech of the frightened 
parrots that had rested, on their migrating flight, in the trees 
over her head. They rose in glittering flocks and hovered 
a long time just over the isle ere they once more settled 
down. 

With the rising of the kind sun her terror decreased. 
But the horror of the loneliness on that silent world still 
remained. All that she had suffered (only a part of which 
my pen can attempt to tell) had destroyed her natural pluck. 
She was as weak as a child. 

So great was her grief, and so vividly was the scene burnt 
in her brain as she stared about her, that she told us how 
the tiny waves came up the shore to her feet singing a song 
of tender fellowship. 

Then how she ran about the isle calling aloud, in the hope 
that some human being might exist in that loneliest spot 
in creation. 

276 



ALONE 

But when only the echoes of her own voice answered her 
despairing cries, the awful desolation overwhelmed her, and 
she rushed back with terrified eyes to the singing shore 
waves, and huddled near their presence, just as a child 
might run from danger back to the security of its little 
comrades. 

The day passed with renewed tropical vigour. The sun 
seemed to hiss as its molten mass of splendour dropped 
splash into the sea. 

The sea-birds muttered. The migrating cockatoos sat on 
the topmost branches of the four solitary bread-fruit trees. 
They looked like big yellow and crimson blossoms that had 
whistling, chuckling beaks as they all started off on their 
flight across the trackless seas. Waylao saw them fade 
like a group of distant caravans on the silent desert blue of 
the sky-line — leaving her alone in the vast Pacific. 

Night came with its terror of darkness and the inunutable 
stars. The girl's mind, like that of a child, flew back to the 
nearest bonds of her existence. 

"Mother! Mother! Father!" she wailed, staring first 
at the stars across the sea, then behind her, with fright. 

Strange pangs commenced to convulse her being. The 
critical moment of her sorrow had arrived. The pangs of 
our first mother. Eve. But she was alone — not even the 
devil to comfort her. 

In the first instincts of approaching motherhood she 
looked behind her ; the terror of the gloom had vanished. 
She turned and crept into the harbouring thicket of bamboos 
and tall ferns beneath the plumed palms. 

In that silent, loneliest spot on earth she huddled, couched 
and trembling. She forgot her desolation. The torturing 
memory of the past vanished. A feeling of fierce joy thrilled 
her. She began to feel the helpless, tender companionship 
of the unborn. 

Wild delirium, intense longing, half anguish, half joy came 
to her memory as she remembered the man who had brought 
the pangs of hell upon her. 

A gleam of cruel reality crept into her brain : she re- 
membered the truth. 

277 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Struggling to her feet, she screamed : " Abduh ! Abduh ! 
I curse you ! I curse you and your Mohammed ! I curse 
him ! " 

She clutched the figure of the Virgin that was at her 
breast and cried : " O Mary ! Mother ! O Christ, I have 
forsaken you ! " 

In the anguish of her soul's remorse she crossed herself 
and fell on her knees. She called the name of Father 
O'Leary, he who had taught her from childhood. 

" Father, Father, I had doubted you, and all the beauty 
of my childhood's dreams." 

As Waylao reached this point in her terrible narrative the 
old priest looked into the half-blind eyes of the girl, and 
touched her brow with his lips. I saw his hot tears fall on 
to her face, and half fancied that we stood before the 
dead who had inherited heaven, so beautiful was the look 
in the stricken eyes of the girl as the old priest blessed her. 
Outside the homestead mission-room the stars were shining, 
and the seas were beating over the barrier reefs. Still the 
lips of her who was as one dead spoke on. 

The white sea moon crept over the silent sea. Its 
reflected light bathed with silver the palms of that 
solitary isle. Only a breath of wind came up the shore 
and stirred the dark-fingered leaves as at last Waylao 
slept. 

The sleeping girl's bosom moved to the sad music 
of mortality's soothing kindness : two small hands were 
pressing vigorously and a tiny mouth was toiling away 
for all it was worth at those soft, warm wells of nourishing 
sorrow. 

Dawn struck the east. The day broadened. Waylao 
lifted her baby up in her arms. It blinked at the light of 
its first mortal day — and wailed. 

Did she, in the ecstasy of a mother's first inquisitiveness, 
peer closely at the small face of that little stranger, the 
stranger who had come as the natural guest of her sorrow — 
and sin ? 

She looked fiercely at it as it wailed as though it pleaded 
forgiveness for that which was not its fault. 

278 



WAIL ON, O WAVES ! 

A mad desire to live came to her. She rushed down to 
the shore. Nothing but the blue encircling sky-lines met 
her hopeless gaze. Her only chance of being rescued was 
by some schooner being blown out of its course by the 
terrific typhoons that sometimes swept those hot, unruffled 
seas. She found a large cave by the shore, not far from the 
small promontory. Near its gloomy entrance stood a belt 
of screw-pines and a clump of coco-palms. By the time 
sunset had once more blazed the western seas she had piled 
up a barrier of hard coral and rock at the cavern's low door- 
way. For in there the wind rushed from the sea, gave a 
hollow moan and ran out again. 

At the far end of this cavern the wretched girl made a 
soft couch of fern-moss and ti-leaves. It was on this bed 
that she crept with her child to sleep. 

All night long the waves ran up the shores, tossed their 
wild arms and wailed by the entrance, in wonder that the 
silence of the old cavern, whereat they had knocked and 
knocked for ages, should be broken by the wail of a human 
child. 

In imagination Father O'Leary and I saw that cave, and 
distinctly heard that pitiful wail. We saw the stricken girl 
mother creep like a wraith beneath the stars of that solitary 
island world of the trackless Pacific. We saw the tawny 
mass of ripe coco-nuts hanging as though from the kind 
hands of Providence. They fell at her feet, so that she 
might give the child nourishing milk, for grief and illness 
had stayed its natural food. 

Day by day the child sickened. One night the flocks of 
parrots and strange birds — that none had ever named — 
suddenly rose in a screeching drove above the palms of that 
lonely isle. Up, up they rose, fluttering beneath the white 
South Sea moon. They had been disturbed from their 
roosts by the agonised scream of the demented human being 
who had so mysteriously arrived on their little world. It 
was Waylao's screech that had disturbed them. Himianity 
had come with its manifold woes and terrors to their world, 
and so the very birds of the air groped and fluttered blindly 
with fright up in the moonlit sky. 

279 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Waylao's child lay on the moss at the end of the cavern, 
its face resting on one small hand. It had turned waxen 
white. A wonderful expression seemed to sleep on its face. 
Only the still, open eyes told the girl of the indefinable 
something that had happened. She rushed to the shore 
and dipped its warm body in the sea. The limpness of the 
limbs and the head struck terror into her heart. She had 
never seen death like that before. The wandering sea-gulls 
hovered, came near the shore swiftly and silently, as though 
with curiosity, then they swerved upward, up over the 
island's palms, leaving her sitting alone with the dead 
infant clutched to her breast. 

The moon which flooded the ocean with brilliant light 
as it gazed on that tragic drama, that scene of the lonely 
seas, had also shone upon the dark-walled shadow cities 
of the far, far north-west, the remote wilds of advanced 
civilisation. It shone on the huddled masses of himianity 
on the streets of London, New York and Paris — lines and 
lines of serried dark walls and dirty, ghostly windows. 
Its beams had streamed into the dim hollows of how many 
thousands of dungeons wherein slept the huddled forms 
of breathing humanity, and upon the enchanted castles of 
happiness, on happy faces of men, women and laughing 
maidens. And still it shone down on that silent isle set 
in a silent sea, where one frail girl looked down on a dead 
child's face. 

But on that night Providence sent other strange beings 
out of those seas of mystery. 

As Waylao sat motionless, paralysed with loneliness and 
pain, staring vacantly seaward, her heart leapt as she saw 
what looked like a phantom ship on the dim horizon. She 
almost screamed with joy as the rigging of that distant craft 
took definite form. The midnight breeze was hurrying in 
with the incoming tide, the tide that hurried the small 
breakers up the white beach. 

Like one demented she ran about in her excitement, 
as nearer and nearer crept the tiny craft. 

Though it was still afar off, she held the dead child 
above her head and screamed. Only the echoes of her 

280 



TRUE SYMPATHY'S DISGUISE 

own voice responded from the rocky silence of her island 
world. 

What was that strange-looking craft floating into that 
silent bay ? As it came into full view, it looked like some 
spectral hulk. Waylao stared. She felt afraid. Was it 
some phantom derelict that was silently approaching that 
unknown isle ? The deck was nearly level with the sea, and 
all awash with the waves. An old spanker swayed to and 
fro. The tattered canvas sail still hung just over the broken 
deck-house, and the jib flapped in the moonlight. But no 
one was at the helm. 

As that strange derelict swerved with the tide, it heaved 
and came round the edge of the promontory into full view. 
A gleam of moonlight streamed through the palms, as it 
hugged the shore and fell slantwise across the deck. 

Waylao crept out on to the promontory, then stopped, 
petrified with fright. 

A terrible spectacle met her gaze, and the thought flew 
into her demented mind that this was some ghostly craft 
with a crew of devils aboard, who had come to take her dead 
child, and her, too, away to purgatory. 

No wonder she shrieked with horror. 

Even in the security of that little mission-room the old 
priest and I trembled and gasped at what we heard. No 
wonder Waylao 's scream broke the terrible silence of that 
awful scene, and at the sound the crew of huddled, ghostly 
shadows on the hulk's deck moved. 

Slowly one rose to its feet ; then two more figures followed. 
The heads seemed to waver as though the eyes sought the 
four points of the compass with helpless indecision. 

What were they ? Devils or human beings ? I will 
tell you. Those figures lifted their heads and turned their 
faces to the shore. They heard by instinct the direction 
of Waylao's terrified call. They stared at her with shining, 
bulged eyes ; they tried to open their gaping, fleshless 
mouths in ghastly efforts for speech. They were rotting, 
hideous skeletons. 

By the remnant of that hulk's deck-house stood a tall 
native chief. He and a beautiful native girl who clung to 

281 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

him alone looked human. They both stared with fright, 
first at Waylao, and then across the silent isle. 

Waylao watched, paralysed with fear. Then from the 
deck arose two more skeleton figures — revealing their 
hideous, noseless faces. 

They lifted their heads as though with terrible effort. 
Their mouths gave forth hollow moans as they slowly sank 
down again, out of sight, among the wreckage of the deck. 

One diseased, eaten face stared through the grating which 
had been fixed up as an extemporised bulwark on the port 
side. 

Waylao gave a terrified cry and turned to flee inland. 

As she did so a hollow voice called out in a strange tongue : 

"Aloha! Aloha! Wai ! Wai ! [water]." 

The cry so resembled some distressed call of humanity 
that Waylao's fright was slightly subdued. She turned and 
swiftly glanced over her shoulder, her heart beating with 
strange fear — a wild hope came that the awful visitants 
might, after all, be friendly spirits in evil disguise. She 
stared with terrified wonder. Three stricken forms stood 
on the deck. In the dim light she saw them waving their 
skeleton hands ; but they were calling with beseeching voices, 
voices that thrilled Waylao's heart with joy, horror and 
hope. 

She lifted the lifeless infant above her head again. In her 
delirium she still thought that the direct cause of their visit 
was — her sorrow. 

In response to her cry, a terrible form arose from the deck 
and stared at her as she held the dead child. That figure 
from out of the mystery of the silent seas lifted its hands 
and cried out : 

" E ko mako Makua i-loko O ka Lani " (" Our Father 
which art in Heaven "). 

Waylao heard that word Lani. She knew that it meant 
heaven. Her first great fright vanished. "They are the 
dead from heaven," she thought. 

Suddenly the hulk crashed against the reefs by the shore, 
swerved round and stopped still. 

The stricken forms rose from the deck, lifted their skeleton 

282 



THE SOUL OF SORROW 

faces and for a moment stood terribly visible as they swayed 
helplessly by the broken mast. 

The moonlight brightened the tattered sails. It streamed 
down through the branches of the surf palms that grew on 
the edge of the promontory. 

Once again those gaping mouths moaned forth : "Wai ! 
Wai ! » 

As the hulk swerved and listed towards the rocks, the 
handsome chief leapt ashore, and the woman who had clung 
to him immediately followed. 

For a moment that handsome stranger stood and gazed 
at Waylao like one in a dream, as she looked up into his 
fevered, bright eyes. 

Staring hurriedly around, he suddenly rushed forward 
and prostrated himself at the edge of the lagoon. Placing 
his mouth into the crystal liquid, he breathed like an animal, 
and drank, drank, drank ! His companion, the native girl, 
likewise prostrated herself and drank beside him. 

As Waylao watched, her fright subsided. They were 
human. For who but mortals could be so maddened by 
thirst ? Her heart was touched with sorrow. 

The chief rose to his feet, filled a large calabash with water 
and returned to the derelict. 

Waylao watched, with her heart in her mouth. The 
sorrow of others overshadowed her own, as she saw the 
huddled, loathsome forms on that hulk's deck struggling 
for the water, their poor heads wobbling as they sought with 
their blind eyes to locate the calabash. 

The Hawaiian maid on the shore, standing by Waylao, 
forced a smile to her lips, as she, too, watched. It was an 
unselfish attempt to reassure her companion, to let her know 
whatever sight met her eyes was a sight of deepest sorrow 
and nothing that could harm her. 

When the chief returned to his comrade's side, they both 
whispered together and glanced at Waylao. Then the 
strange girl took the dead child from the exile's arms and 
laid it gently in the fern grass by the lagoon. They spoke 
to Waylao in soft, musical speech. Seeing she did not 
understand their language, they said : 

283 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

" Wahine, you lone ? No ones else belonga here ? " 

The Hawaiian girl clutched the chief's arm with fright 
as they both awaited Waylao's reply. But when she 
answered, " I am quite alone, no one else is on this 
island but me," those silent listeners seemed endowed 
with renewed life. 

They gazed at each other with delight streaming from 
their eyes. The chief lifted his hand to heaven and shouted 
some deep thanksgiving to Lani. The intense misery of the 
woman's eyes vanished. She turned to Waylao, took her 
hand and pressed it impulsively. Suddenly she withdrew 
it and gave a start of terror. For the chief had looked 
on the Hawaiian girl and reminded her of the curse that 
lay upon them. But Waylao, who had never thought to 
hear the music of human voices again, forgot her own 
grief. 

But who were they ? What were those terrible figures 
huddled on the deck of the hulk ? Instinct told her that 
some terrible sorrow had drifted across the sea, some sorrow 
that was tragically human. That stricken crew had not 
come to hurt the girl. They would not wilfully harm a hair 
of her head. They had drifted out of the hells of misery. 
They were the stricken of the earth. They had escaped 
from the tomb where the buried still have memories of 
lovers, husbands, wives and children — yes, the tomb of 
God's utterest pestilential misery, where the dead still 
curse, still dream that they hear the laughter of other days 
moaning in the wind-swept pines, on the shores of beetling, 
wave-washed crags. 

They came from where the dead lay in their shrouds and 
could hear, with envy, these toiling spades as their comrades 
were buried by night — comrades, twice dead, released, at 
last, from their loathsome, rotting corpse, life's hideous, 
bloated face, gaping, fleshless mouth and bulged, half- blind 
eyes. 

O tragical truth ! The handsome chief, the beautiful, 
clinging woman and the stricken crew of the hulk were 
escapes — fugitives from the dreadful lazaretto on Molokai, 
the leper isle. 

284 



THE ISLE OF WELCOME 

The Hawaiian chief and his lover — for such they were, 
though stricken with the scourge — had no sign as yet visible 
on their faces. 

The sympathetic look that Waylao gave them, the pleasure 
she revealed at their presence, touched their hearts. It 
was long, long ago since human beings had welcomed their 
presence. 

The Hawaiian girl plucked some palm leaves and gently 
covered Waylao 's dead child. 

Then the Hawaiian chief and his tender comrade went 
back to the hulk and proceeded to bring their leper comrades 
ashore. In a few moments they both appeared by the 
hulk's broken bulwarks and threw some planks that made 
a gangway down to the wet sands, and began to carry their 
stricken comrades, one by one, on a deck grating, down to 
the shore. 

There were five all told. One was a flaxen-headed little 
boy of about six years of age. As they laid the little form 
beneath the palms, the child lifted its head and moaned. 

Waylao, touched with intense pity, disobeyed the order 
of the chief, went towards the figures of the stricken and 
attempted to soothe them. 

She had no thought of the chances she took of catching 
the terrible malady, but she gave a cry of horror at the 
sight that met her eyes. 

It seemed impossible that such advanced dissolution 
should still live ; the fleshless, skull-like heads wobbled 
and lifted, the bulged, glass-like eyes stared at her like 
hideous misery. The stricken beings discerned the look 
of sympathy on Waylao's face. The fleshless mouths 
smiled. The girl half drew back, for the look in those eyes, 
the movement of those lips resembled some grin of hate, 
rather than the intense gratitude that they yearned to 
express. 

As Waylao watched, she heard splashes in the sea, and, 
looking in the direction of the hulk, saw the Hawaiian chief 
in the act of throwing the last body into the ocean depths. 
These were the bodies of the crew who had died ere they 
reached the isles, and three corpses of those who had drank 

285 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

too quickly of the water on deck, and so had died at once in 
agony. It appeared that when the hulk sailed away from 
the leper isle there were fourteen on board. After a week 
of drifting across the ocean the number was reduced to nine. 
Another few days without water and scorched by the blaz- 
ing tropical sun had finished off three more, till only five 
arrived ashore alive. 

The chief had finished his terrible task on the hulk, and 
as Waylao watched the dark spots bobbing about on 
the moonlit waters, she saw them drifting round by the 
promontory's edge, then, with the tide, go seaward. 

The Hawaiian girl clung tightly to her companion's 
tall, handsome figure and moaned. The reaction had set 
in. 

"Aiola, Aiola ! " he murmured in the tenderest way as 
he looked down into her uplifted eyes. He was robed in 
the picturesque Hawaiian costume — a broad-fringed lava- 
lava to his tawny knees, round his waist a tappa robe swathed 
in a row of knots of ornamental design. 

Aiola, for that was the girl's name, looked with the deepest 
affection up into his eyes, then kissed his tattooed, brown, 
shapely shoulders. 

Waylao no longer attempted to shrink from the afflicted. 
She helped gather soft mosses and leaves. The stricken 
lepers opened their terrible eyes and regarded her with 
deep tenderness as she helped to make their couches. 

" No touch ! No touch ! Unclean ! Unclean ! Mai Pake ! 
Mai Pake ! " ^ they moaned as she pushed their limp, help- 
less limbs into more comfortable positions. 

" Ora, loa, ia Jesu," breathed one as she closed her eye- 
lids and died — on the shore. 

Ere the night passed they had all died ; only the Hawaiian 
chief and his mistress lived. 

As the dawn brightened the east they were still sitting 
huddled beneath the screw-pines. As the sun streamed 
across the seas, Waylao, the chief and the Hawaiian girl 
crept beneath the shade of the palms and slept. 

So did sorrow in its most terrible form come across the 
^ Leprosy . 
286 



AH, WOEFUL DELIVERANCE ! 

seas to bring balm and true comradeship to the friendless 
Waylao. 

That same day the chief brought old sails and gratings 
ashore. Ere sunset had faded he had fixed up the cavern's 
hollow into two compartments, one for himself and the 
other for Waylao and Aiola. 

The beautiful Hawaiian girl sat by her lover's side and 
sang songs to him, looking up into his face all the while she 
sang — ^yes, in a way that was like one sees in glorious 
pictures of tender romance, only it was beautifully, terribly 
real. 

The chief told Waylao how he had loved the maid since 
she was a little child ; how before she had reached woman- 
hood the leprosy spot had appeared on her body. Then 
came the terrible edict that condemned all lepers to life 
exile on the Isle of Molokai. He told Waylao how he had 
hidden the Hawaiian girl in a cave by the shores of his 
native isle. But notwithstanding all his precautions they 
had discovered that he had a lover hidden somewhere, a 
lover who had the dreaded leper spot, and was striving to 
elude the clutch of the leper-hunters. 

One night a terrified scream broke the silence of the shore 
caves, and Aiola was taken away across the seas to the 
dread lazaretto. Then, to the chief's delight, he discovered 
the dread Mai Pake — the leper spot — on his own body. 
He, too, was sent to the leper lazaretto, and so met Aiola 
again. 

They had clung to each other with the arms of love, but, 
still, the loathsome sights, ever haunting their eyes, had 
made them yearn to escape, anywhere, anywhere across the 
seas, from that living tomb. 

Pointing to the hulk that lay high on the sands, for the 
tide had left it dry, he said : 

" That hulk was the means of our deliverance ; it was 
washed ashore on the Isle of Molokai through a hurricane. 
One night, under the cover of great darkness, we did creep 
down to the shore. When we got on to the hulk and stowed 
away in the dark hold, awaiting to push it into deep water 
as the tide rose, we discovered that another lot of lepers 

287 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

had also stowed away, ready for the outgoing tide. At first 
we were sorry, then we became exceedingly glad, for it was 
only by their help that we were enabled to push the hulk 
with bamboo rods into deep water. 

" So did we drift away to sea. A great storm was blowing 
from the north-west. The matagia [gale] blew for five days. 
We all hid in the hold, for we were frightened that some ship 
might sight the drifting hulk and search and find us. But 
the great white God heard our prayers, and so we were not 
discovered ! " ^ 

As the Father and I listened to the girl's story, we 
marvelled with astonishment, so evident was the intense 
interest the exiled girl had taken in those stricken people, 
completely forgetting her own troubles. The Father's eyes 
were blind with tears, and so were mine. 

Waylao came to love those Hawaiian exiled lepers. She 
also would kneel beside the castaways and pray and sing 
with them. 

Though they were both cursed with the plague, no spot 
had, as yet, commenced to show its hideous presence on 
either of their faces. 

The Hawaiian girl had contracted the malady years before 
her companion, so the signs of the scourge were consider- 
ably advanced on her body ; but still her shoulders and 

1 It was a common thing in those days for travellers to find skeletons 
in the coast caves and the forests of the Hawaiian Isles, and in many 
of the surrounding isles of the North Pacific. Some, maybe, were 
the skeletons of shipwrecked white men and natives, or escapes from 
the convict settlements of Noumea. More often they were the remains 
of the stricken, who had fled from the leper-hunters, preferring to 
cast themselves adrift in a canoe or raft, and risk the terrors of the 
ocean to the dreadful exile to the lazaretto on Molokai. Often the 
fugitives were accompanied by a wife, husband, child or lover. And 
often those who shared their sorrows died by their own hand when 
the tragedy had ended in the death of the afflicted . It may be some 
will think that I have overdrawn the horrors of leprosy and its effects 
physically and mentally. I can assure my readers that, in my 
attempt to depict the scenes of leprosy and its consequences in those 
times, I am obUged to leave out a good deal. The full truth were 
too terrible to write about in a book that only touches on the matter 
so far as it concerns Waylao. 

288 



BELOVED, THOU ART LOVELY ! 

breast were sraooth and beautiful, and still the Hawaiian 
chief, O Le Haiwa-oe, sang to the beauty of Aiola's eyes. 
But one day he noticed that those eyes he loved had begun 
to look dull and shiny-looking. His heart beat as though 
it would burst, so deep was his sorrow over what he knew 
was inevitable. 

The leper girl's swift instinct saw that look on her lover's 
face. She blushed deeply and trembled with fright at the 
thought of the hideous rot, which at last had commenced 
to show itself on her features. 

O Le Haiwa-oe looked at her and said : " Beloved, thou 
art as lovely as of yore, 'twas the beauty of your eyes that 
made me gaze into them." 

But Aiola was not to be deceived. 

As the days went on, Waylao resolved to stay in exile 
with those sad fugitives. 

So, without telling them, she went out to the dead screw- 
pine that stood on the edge of the promontory, piled up the 
rocks one by one, then, standing on them, took down the 
large bit of canvas sail, fastened there as a signal of distress. 
She had only allowed it to be placed there through the 
pleadings of the poor Hawaiians. They knew that the 
inevitable hour was drawing near when life would be more 
than a living death, for would they not see their own dis- 
solution ? They cared not for the risk of a schooner sighting 
that signal. It would take Waylao away to safety, but it 
would not take them. No ; the Hawaiians had resolved to 
go on a longer journey should their hiding-place be discovered. 
When O Le Haiwa-oe saw Waylao take the signal down, his 
eyes filled with tears, and in a moment he had run out to 
the edge of the promontory and placed the canvas sail 
fluttering to the breeze. 

At last a ship was sighted on the horizon. It was beating 
its lonely way to the north-west. Waylao looked at it with 
longing eyes. Her heart went out to the white sails that 
could so easily bear her homeward. She dreamed that she 
heard the voices of the sailors on deck, and saw the tenderness 
in their eyes as they carried her on board ; then she turned 
and looked at the stalwart Hawaiian leper chief, and the 

T 289 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

clinging maid. They, too, were staring seaward, but their 
eyes were fevered-looking, they were both silent with fear. 

" Go and hide in the cave," said Waylao. " If they 
should see the signal and come, I will say there are no 
more here ! " 

For a moment both the stricken leper lovers looked at her 
with deep gratitude. A look was in their eyes like the look 
in the eyes of hunted animals, as they crept into the cave 
and hid. 

When they had both crept away into the dark, they 
wondered why Waylao had not wished them good-bye, 
for would she not be taken away on the ship for ever ? 
Aiola, at the thought, sobbed in her lover's arms. 

The schooner was now distinctly visible. Waylao saw 
the light of the sunset gleaming on the flying sails. Though 
a tremendous longing thrilled her heart, she crept out on the 
promontory. She thought of her mother and father and 
the kind priest. But though her heart cried within her, 
still she did not hesitate. Standing beneath the dead tree, 
she piled the stones up as swiftly as possible, took down the 
distress signal and waited till the schooner had passed before 
she replaced it. 

Then she rushed back to the cave, and called softly : 

"Aiola! O Le Zeno ! Come, come! The ship has 
passed, and you are safe ! " 

The lepers came forth with a look of half-wild delight 
on their faces, though still trembling, for life is sweet, 
however sad. 

In a moment the Hawaiian chief glanced at the distress 
signal, "Aiola ! " he said, and the leper maid also looked. 
For a while the two stricken Hawaiians gazed into each 
other's eyes, their hearts too full to speak — ^Waylao had in 
her hurry put the signal flag back upside down. 

In a moment they had seen through the self-sacrifice of 
their little comrade. Without saying a word, they looked 
into each other's eyes, the three of them, and then burst 
into tears — and far away, on the dim horizon, the schooner's 
sails faded like the wings of a grey sea-bird. 



290 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The Weaving Hands of Fate in Mrs Matafa's Knitted Shawl— 
Waylao tries to kill Herself — Snatched from Death — ^The Terrible 
Scourge — ^The Hulk disappears — The Compact of Death — 
The Lovers put off the Act Day by Day — A Ship comes in Sight 
— The Last Farewell of the Leper Lovers — The Last Sunset 

AS the days went by, Waylao noticed a great change 
in her comrades' manners. Their songs ceased, 
and they mostly sat whispering or praying to- 
gether. One day as she sat beneath the palms by the shore, 
dreaming of the past, the Hawaiian chief came up to her and 
said : " Waylao, we are sorely troubled. We know that but 
for us you might have been rescued, and been taken back 
to your people." Saying this, the chief looked steadily at 
Waylao, who replied : 

" But I do not wish to leave you. Should I be taken from 
this isle, and know that you were left here alone, to die, I 
should never be happy again." 

The Hawaiian maid, who had crept up whilst her lover 
was speaking, heard all that Waylao said, and was deeply 
touched. But they both quickly responded as though with 
one voice : " We must not allow you to sacrifice your life 
for our sake ; we are sure to die, then it will be you who will 
be left here alone." Without saying another word, the 
chief went out to the palm-tree that grew on the most 
distant point of the promontory, climbed the highest tree 
and fixed old Mrs Matafa's knitted shawl on the topmost 
bough. There it waved, flying to the breeze of that silent 
sea, the token of Mrs Matafa's kindness, flapping violently 
as its knitted folds called to the illimitable sky-lines for 
help. 

Waylao was too wretched to resist the wishes of the 
lepers. She knew that the terrors of death were upon the 
beautiful Hawaiian maid Aiola, for only the night before 

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WINE-DARK SEAS 

she had heard the maid say, as she clung to the chief; 
*' We must die I We must diej O Le Haiwa-oe I Promise 
that I am dead ere mine eyes are dull I " And the chief 
promised. 

" Beloved," he said, " your eyes are still beautiful." But 
as he gazed his heart was stricken with anguish. For the 
terrible sight was there before his gaze : the maid's eyes were 
bulged and shining like glass in consequence of the terrible 
scourge. 

They made Waylao sleep alone. " You will surely catch 
the leprosy if you sleep near us," they said. So as the wind 
blew through the coco-palms all night, and the waves tossed 
up the shore, Waylao tossed sleeplessly. She could hear 
the Hawaiian girl moaning through the night in her 
sleep : " O my beloved, kill me ! Kill me ! My eyes ! My 
eyes ! " 

Next day, when Waylao thought she was unobserved, she 
crept out to the edge of the promontory. There was no 
wind. The sea was like a mighty sheet of glass. Only one 
or two waves, at long intervals, crept in from the swell, to 
break sparkling on the sun-lit sand. 

In a few seconds she had tied a large bit of rock coral on 
to the string that she held secretly in her hand. This string 
she tied again to her waist, then, with a prayer on her lips, 
she dived noiselessly into the deep, clear water — and dis- 
appeared in the depths. 

The Hawaiian chief by the merest chance saw Waylao's 
head disappear beneath the calm surface. He rushed out 
to the promontory's edge and tried to locate the spot where 
the girl had sunk. As the ripples widened, he peered below 
the glassy surface and distinctly saw Waylao's figure as it 
lay on the sandy bottom. Her uplifted face and swaying 
limbs were as visible as though she were lying encased in a 
mirror. Even the lump of coral that she had tied to her 
waist was visible ; he saw her dying efforts to dislodge the 
string from her body. In a moment he had dived, clutched 
the girl and brought her to the surface — coral and all. 
" Waylao, you would leave us alone to sorrow over your 
death. Have we not sorrowed enough ? " 

292 



WHERE COMRADESHIP REIGNS 

So did he speak as Waylao opened her eyes and gazed 
into those of her rescuer. 

"Forgive me, I longed to die," she cried, as Aiola, the 
Hawaiian girl, opened her bodice to chafe her breast. 

" Kilia I " (leprosy) cried the Hawaiian maid as she 
rubbed Waylao's bosom and the skin all peeled softly off 
on to her hand — Waylao had contracted the plague, she too 
was a leper. 

Instead of the Marquesan girl being worried over the 
discovery, she looked into the eyes of her friends and smiled. 
For the thought came to her that they were now true 
comrades in grief. 

On the following night a terrible typhoon blew. The 
thundering seas seemed to make some tremendous effort 
to wash the little isle into the ocean depths. The bending 
pines and palms moaned so loudly that it kept the cast- 
aways awake all night, as they sat by the cavern's doorway 
together. It was this night that the chief came to Waylao 
and said : 

" O maid, though you have got kilia, you may live for 
many years, so, should a sail come in sight, they must see 
the distress signal. You will then be able to go away and 
see your people before you die," 

Waylao hung her head with grief, and as Aiola tried to 
soothe her, once more the chief put up the signal, which he 
had taken down at Waylao's request. 

" Cannot I stay and die with you, Aiola ? " Waylao 
replied, 

" No ; because you know not our plans. We have decided 
to die together. How can we die and know in our hearts 
that you will be left alone on this isle ? " 

Saying this, the Hawaiian girl took Waylao's hand, kissed 
it, and said : "If you love us, do as we wish," 

Then the two castaway girls embraced each other, cried 
in each other's arms and slept no more that night. 

In the morning the sea had calmed ; the typhoon had 
blown itself out as swiftly as it had blown itself in. 

As the day broadened, and the golden streams of fire 
imparadised the eastern horizon, the three castaways stood 

293 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

on the beach and stared : the old hulk, that had been high 
and dry on the beach facing their cavern home, had dis- 
appeared. The wild night seas had dislodged it from the reef 
and washed it away. As they stared across the brightening 
waters they saw the hulk adrift, far off. All day long they 
watched it. At sunset it faded on the horizon to the south- 
west. As it died from their sight their hearts became 
heavy. Though it was only an insensate hulk, it somehow 
faded away like a dear old friend, something that was the 
last link between them all and the world that they had 
left for ever. 

A few days later the chief came to Aiola and said : 

" The distress signal still flies on the highest point. Our 
friend will be saved some day." Saying this, he looked into 
the sad eyes of the Hawaiian girl. She returned the gaze 
steadily : she knew what he meant, but did not flinch. 

The chief's voice was hoarse and had the note of 
intense sorrow in it. The leper girl stood up on tiptoe, 
kissed his shoulder, and said : 

" Beloved, I know how your heart feels, but remember 
that 'tis my wish that we go to the great Lani [Heaven] 
together." 

The chief answered not, but sat perfectly still and gazed 
upon the maid who still revealed the wild beauty of her 
race. She peered back into her lover's eyes. Crimson 
flowers to please his eyes bedecked the tresses of her wind- 
blown hair. The tropic breezes stirred the rich-hued masses 
as they fell to her smooth breast in curling waves. The 
silken tappa blouse was torn, and revealed the curves of 
her smooth shoulders, that were as perfect and brown as 
a nightingale's eggs. 

"My beloved, kiss me," whispered the maid as she 
looked up into his eyes. 

The chief did not answer. Perhaps he was thinking of 
the past, for he had known Aiola since she was a little child. 
The eventide was fast falling — yes, the hour when the girl 
would cling to him and pass away into the shadows of the 
great Unknown. 

As sunset flooded the seas, and the shadows fell over the 

29,4 




HalI'-caste SaiMoan Chikf 



WHEN THE HEART FAILS US 

small island world, he looked into Aiola's eyes and said : 
"Come!" 

For a moment the two Hawaiians stood side by side, 
and looked over their shoulders at Waylao, who sat on the 
promontory's edge, ignorant that the terrible moment had 
arrived. 

" Aiola, hesitate not, come into the cave," said the chief. 
Then they both crept into the cave, and kneeling side by 
side prayed, saying : " Ora li Jesu " (the Lord's Prayer). 
Then they peered into each other's eyes as though 
for the last time ; and the brave Hawaiian maid said : 
" Strike ! " 

The chief held the blade aloft and gave one longing look 
into the eyes of the girl that he loved. He could not strike. 
So they fell into each other's arms and kissed again — and 
put it off till the next night. 

So did they each night prepare to die ; and each night 
his heart failed him. Then, alas ! one day a sail appeared 
on the horizon. 

Waylao was the first to see the white glimmer, sparkling 
like a beautiful bird's wing far to the north-west. 

She tried to distract the chief's attention. But it was 
no good : his keen eyes discerned it. 

Nearer and nearer came the sail. The Hawaiian chief 
undid the old Samoan's woman's shawl and placed it on a 
tree a little more to the south of the isle. Then they all 
watched. At first it seemed as though the schooner was 
dipping away across the sea straight on its course. Suddenly 
the sails, on fire with the light of the sunset, swerved, and 
the golden and crimson fire touched the other side of the 
spread canvas, that had been a dull grey, and they knew 
the schooner had sighted the signal of distress and was 
beating its way towards the solitary isle. 

"Hide me, I don't want to go away from you, don't 
leave me ! " screamed Waylao. 

It was no good. The Hawaiian chief looked at her sternly 
but kindly. 

And Waylao knew that she appealed in vain. 

The Hawaiian turned his head away to hide his tears. 
Fate had given him a task which he hated to perform. 

295 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

Aiola, who stood watching the approaching schooner, 
called out in a beseeching voice : " Waylao, let us die ! " 

As Waylao gazed at the girl, pleading so strangely for the 
hand of Death to strike, her heart stood still. For Aiola 
had hidden herself for several days. Why ? Her eyes 
goggled and stared like bulged glass, and as the Hawaiian 
chief turned and looked at her she hung her head for shame. 
The shoulders that he had so often praised for their smooth, 
graceful beauty were spotted and disfigured. 

Waylao followed the chief, obediently, like a child, as he 
led her to say the last good-bye. 

The two girls embraced and sobbed in each other's arms. 
Then they all knelt together and prayed. 

Nearer and nearer came the schooner. 

The chief was the first to rise. 

"Waylao, go down to the shore and wait till I call you." 
Saying this, he stooped and kissed Waylao on the brow, 
and murmured something in a strange tongue. 

Waylao went down to the shore, walking like one in a 
dream. 

The Hawaiian chief took hold of his beloved one by the 
arm, and led her into the cavern. 

Before they entered the silent place that was to be their 
tomb, they both looked over their shoulders into the light 
of their last sunset. Then they swiftly embraced ; their 
hps met ; they murmured "Aloha ! " into each other's very 
souls. 

The knife flashed silently, then the same blade flashed 
again and went straight to the Hawaiian chief's heart also. 

Waylao, who stood on the shore watching the dipping 
bows of the schooner that came towards the isle, suddenly 
recovered her senses. 

" Aiola ! Aiola ! Come to me ! " she screamed. In the 
terror of the silence that answered her despairing cry she 
rushed up the shore into the cavern. Once inside, she stood 
bathed in the light of the setting sun streaming through 
that hollow doorway. The sight that met her eyes transfixed 
her with horror. 

Even the sailors on the schooner's deck heard that terrified 

296 



I KISS A SLEEPING GIRL 

shriek. Then she ran down to the shore and fell prostrate 
on to the sands. 

Thus was Waylao saved from the sea and brought back 
to her native isle to die. 
• ••••• ^ 

Such was the terrible story Waylao told Father O'Leary 
in my presence. I cannot describe the sorrow that shone 
in her eyes, as through the hours we listened. I recall how 
the priest held her in his arms as though she were his own 
erring daughter, and laid her trembling form on the mission 
couch. Though we could hear the wild songs and oaths 
of the very crew who had brought her on their ship from 
that leper isle, no one in the world knew the truth of the 
secret that Father O'Leary and I guarded in the mission- 
room. 

For three days she lay there, in that little room that she 
had so often dusted for the kind priest. 

It was on the third day that she left us for ever, the victim 
of a tragedy that had left her a dying wreck at seventeen 
years of age. 

I was obliged to clear out of that mission-room when the 
priest murmured prayers by the coffin. I felt too weak and 
sick at heart to watch that Calvary of stricken hopes and 
aspirations — betrayed by the Judas of hypocritical manhood. 

1 hated to see the world so beautiful outside, as she slept 
on. The mano-bird was singing in the banyans, the sunset 
fired the seas, and from far came the sounds of drums that 
were beating the stars in up in the mountain villages. 

It was now that the Father went on his knees by that 
silent form for the last time. It all seemed unreal to me, 
as he took the image of the Virgin, softly pulled back the 
folds of the shroud and laid it on the dead girl's bosom. 
In that moment we both noticed the livid leprosy patch on 
the breast of the sleeping girl. 

The Father quickly fastened the shroud folds together 
again. I believe trouble would have come to him had he 
been known to conceal a leper. Then he called softly — in 
they came, three hired men. They were rough-looking, 
almost villainous types, but even they looked deeply on 

297 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

that silent form ere they stooped and nailed the lid down — 
and hid her face for ever from the sight of men. 

That same night I sat in the forest quite alone., like one 
in a dream. I think I must have slept beneath the silence 
of those giant bread-fruit trees that moaned sorrowfully 
over me as the wind swept in from the dark seas. Though 
I felt some strange fright at my heart, I felt glad as Pauline 
crept out of the cloistered shadows. 

"I'm pleased you've come at last," I said, as I com- 
menced to play a wondrous melody on my violin. 

Her eyes seemed unearthly bright as she suddenly sprang 
into my arms. It was so unexpected. She was as cold as 
death and trembling. 

" I shall come again," she said. 

" Must you go ? " I responded, nothing seeming strange 
near Tai-o-hae, 

My voice sounded a long way off. As I spoke, the pale 
brow, the beautiful mass of hair became shadowy, dim and 
visionary. Only the transcendent gleam of the blue eyes 
stared through the dark of my dream. 

I put forth my arms and endeavoured to grasp her, but 
she had vanished. It was then that I knew 'twas but 
another mad dream of mine. 



298 



EPILOGUE 

Hark ! o'er the wild shore reefs the seas are leaping, 
The clamouring white-armed waves come in and go ; 
The wind along the waste, with voice unsleeping, 
Has that about its cry that all men know 
Who ghost-like from themselves steal far away 
To hearth-fires, dead sunsets — of Yesterday ! 

OUT of the night the dawn came creeping over the 
ranges Hke a maiden with her sandals dipped in 
light, the glory of the stars fading in her hair as 
she stood on the brightening clouds of the eastern mountain 
peaks of Nuka Hiva, and with her golden bugle of silence 
she blew transcendent streaks of crimson along the grey 
horizon — to awaken the day. 

The sounds of the natives beating their drums aroused 
the echoes of the hills. 

" Wailo oooe ! wailo ooooeeee ! " called some nameless 
bird from the forest shadows where now the last of the 
Marquesan race sleep by their beloved seas. 

The harbour was silent. Not an oath echoed from the 
grog shanty. The traders and sailormen still slept. I 
could not sleep. As I stood by the shore-sheds it seemed 
impossible that such tragedy should live in such beautiful 
surroundings. I was not sorry that I had secured a berth 
on the s.s. — — , a three-masted ship anchored out in the 
bay. She was due to sail on the Saturday morning, so I 
still had three more days in Nuka Hiva. 

All the familiar faces had gone. News came in the 
Apia Times that the Bell Bird schooner had gone down 
in a typhoon, lost with all hands off Savaii Isle. The only 
evidence that the crew ever existed were several small, dark 
spots sighted by a passing ship's skipper, fading away on the 
sky-line — the old peaked and oilskin caps of my old shellbacks 
drifting away on the waste of waters, travelling N.N.W. 

299 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

The Hebrew prophet might well have spoken of such 
a place as that wooden grog bar of Tai-o-hae when he said : 
" One generation passeth away and another cometh." Only 
the mountains abideth for ever. Ah, Koheleth, your wisdom 
was the wisdom of truth. The sun sets and rises again, the 
winds blow eternally on appointed courses ; the river flows 
to the sea ; but whither shall I go ? And where is he who 
went away ten thousand years ago ? " 

Not only in the South Seas will you hear of the tragedy 
of Waylao. She is at your door wailing — if you have eyes 
to see and ears to hear. She walks the ghostly London 
streets by night, calling for her lost lover. And one may 
pass her nameless grave wherever the dead are buried. 

Perhaps my pages smack too much of sorrow ; but T 
would say that even our sorrows are too brief. Life itself 
is little more than this : 

A man and a woman awoke in the hills of Time. 

"How beautiful is the sun that I see," said the man, 
after admiring the beauty of the woman who had so mysteri- 
ously appeared before him. Still the man stared at the sun, 
but so brief was his existence that, when he turned to gaze 
once more on the glory of the woman beside him, she had 
wrinkled up to a wraith of skin and bone. 

" What is this terrible thing that has happened ? " he said, 
as he wept to see so terrible a change in that which he loved. 
" What have I done ? " he moaned. 

Then the woman wept and said : " You too have altered 
since you turned your face to the sun ; it is wrinkled, and 
your cheeks look like the cheeks of that big toad." 

Hearing this, the man rushed off into the forest and 
prayed to his shadow in the lake, thinking it was Omni- 
potence ! 

Rushing back to see if his prayer had been answered, he 
saw a little heap of dust : it was all that was left of the 
beautiful woman. He shouted his hatred to the sky, then 
he fell prostrate and prayed fervently, and then — he was 
struck deaf, dumb and blind ; and only the sun laughed over 
the hills again so that the flowers could blossom over their 
dust. 

300 



MORE CALVARIES THAN ONE 

So one will see that it is natural that sorrow as well as rum 
and wild song should reign in Tai-o-hae. 

When I went to say good-bye to the old priest, I was 
astonished to see the change in him. But I must confess 
that I was more astonished when he gazed steadily at me 
and said ; 

"My son, I have discovered the great secret. We are 
both nearer the sorrow of Calvary and the joy of Paradise 
than I ever dreamed ! " 

Saying this, the old man took my hand, and said in 
his rich, musical voice, that strangely thrilled me : 
" Come ! " 

In wonder I followed him beneath the palms. 

As we passed down into the hollows, the sea-gulls swept 
swiftly away from the surfaces of the hidden lagoons, 
their wild cries soimding like the ghostly echoes of 
bugles. 

The priest led me up the tiny track that led to the path 
by the moimtains, not far from the cross-roads that led to 
the calaboose of Nuka Hiva. I began to wonder what 
on earth it could all mean, for the old priest had a strange 
look on his face and was running his fingers through his 
beads. 

Suddenly he turned to me and said, in a cracked voice : 
" My son, lift thine eyes, and breathe the hallowed name of 
Him who died for sinners." 

I made a mighty effort and obeyed. After I had looked 
up at the sky with due decorum, he looked stealthily around 
him, and said in a tense whisper : " My son, to think I have 
dwelt so near and never known." 

" Known what. Father ? " I ejaculated, my heart full 
of wonder. (I noticed that his eyes were unearthly 
bright.) 

" My son," he said, in a hushed voice, " it is here where our 
Lord Jesus Christ died ! I have discovered the remains of 
the old Cross ! " 

" No ! Never ! " I ejaculated, as he fell on his knees and 
lifted up a large lump of grey coral stone. I admit that it 
looked like the remnant of some tomb's edifice. Under the 

301 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

influence of the Father's earnest manner I was thrilled with 
curious wonder as I stared at the lump of stone. My belief 
at that moment was as firm as the rock that the priest still 
held. 

" 'Tis the very stone, the cross that our Redeemer was 
crucified upon," said he, as he stared at me. 

"How did it come here, all the way from Jeru- 
salem ? " I said, in a hushed voice, as I gazed on the sacred 
relic. 

" I know not, my son, but there it is. Canst thou not see 
it with thine own eyes ? " 

"Assuredly I can, Father," I murmured, as I looked at 
that old stone, and thought how like an ordinary cross stone 
off a mortal's grave it seemed. True enough, the cemetery 
was close by, the spot where they buried sad, home-sick men, 
women and children — and did she not lie there, the dead 
convict girl ? 

I took the Father's hand and led him away. I called a 
native woman who passed to take his other arm. He was 
old and tremulous, and I saw the truth. 

" So that's the end of all your life's self-sacrifice, your 
reward," I muttered to myself as we led the demented old 
man away. 

That night the natives in the village hard by the mission- 
room could not sleep, neither could I, as the Father lay 
calling out wild prayers to the silent night, and strange 
names echoed in his room. That's almost the last I saw, 
or rather heard, of him. 

My last visit in Tai-o-hae was to a place that anyone may 
go and see to this very day. For the little track that lies 
north-west of the bay leads suddenly upon a little plateau 
by Calaboose Hill. It is a lonely spot, sheltered on one side 
by coco-palms and a few bread-fruit trees. It is half fenced 
in by rough wooden railing. Across its hollows are many 
piles of earth and stones. Old-time chiefs and missing 
white men sleep there. Jungle grass and hibiscus blossoms 
almost hide the cross where Waylao sleeps, and not so far 
away Pauline also lies at rest. 

It was night when I last stood there — the winds seemed to 

302 



WHERE THEY BOTH SLEEP 

strike the giant bread-fruits with a frightened breath. Far 
away the ocean winds were lifting the seas in their arms 
beneath the stars, till the ocean looked like some mighty- 
hissing cauldron of thwarted desires. 

I could just hear faintly the echoes of wild song coming in 
from a ship in the bay, and from the new generation of shell- 
backs in the grog shanty. 

It's years since I packed up my traps and sailed away from 
Tai-o-hae, I called in at Samoa and saw the Matafas. 
When I had told them the history and end of Waylao and 
Tamafanga, they both laid their old heads on the hut table 
and cried like two children. 

No wonder I love heathens and hate the memory of Mr 
and Mrs Christian Pink, of Suva township. 

And what is the moral of the foregoing reminiscences and 
impressions ? The moral will be understood or ignored 
according to the temperament of the reader. Some will 
sneer, and some will understand and feel as I have felt. 
I'm sure to find good company among many ; I've travelled 
the world and met many of my own type. I'm common 
enough, thank God. 

" A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," said the poet. So 
is sorrow. Nothing really dies ; it's all the same as it was 
long before, in some new form being washed in again by the 
tide. The bird that sings to us to-day sang to the reapers 
in the corn-fields of Assyria. I dare say that I helped to 
build the Pyramids. 

Is Grimes dead ? No ! He lives to-day, buckles on his 
armour, and with a grim, brave look in his English eyes 
goes forth to battle, that the helpless may live. 

And Pauline ? She still sings of England to exiled men, 
wherever Waylao has wept for her race in the savage, 
ravished South. 

I often hear their old songs as the winds and birds sing in 
the windy poplars, in the green woods and English fields. 
I never go forth in the summer nights but I can hear her 
shadow-feet pattering down the dusky lanes beside me, and 
the sweetest songs of far-off romance echo in my ears. Ah ! 
could I catch the beauty of those songs, what a composer 

303 



WINE-DARK SEAS 

would I be. But I can only write down the spindrift of 
those glorious strains. 

I often sit dreaming far into the night. It is then that 
she comes back from the shadows and kneels with me at the 
altar of my dreams — and sings some far-off strain of my 
beautiful, dead Romance. 



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